San Francisco Live Arts

San Francisco Live Arts (SFLA) has presented two live music concerts each month for the past thirty years at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco. Focusing on folks and world music but featuring many contemporary, country, Indie-rock and vocal artists as well, SFLA has cultivated a small but devoted following among both artists who have forged relationships with SFLA's director Larry Kassin, and among audiences who like seeing live music in an intimate, no-frills neighborhood setting. Renovations at Noe Valley Ministry will preclude SFLA from presenting concerts there in 2011 and the organization will be relocating to St. Cyprians Church in the Nopa neighborhood of San Francisco. This tie-off grant to SFLA will support them to move to a new venue and leverage the milestone of their 30th anniversary to gain publicity aimed at building new audiences in their new home. ($25,000/1 ; 100% of project budget).

San Francisco Live Arts (SFLA) presents 25 folk, jazz, bluegrass, and world music concerts to 2,500 people at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco. SFLA is led by Larry Kassin, a passionate jazz flutist who founded the presenting organization in 1981 to create performance opportunities for emerging and non-mainstream musicians. From Bobby McFerrin to Bill Frisell, from Tango No. 9 to Scott Amendola, the list of artists who have performed at SFLA’s Noe Valley Ministry Series is long and impressive. The $12-$18 tickets and the neighborhood venue combine to make the series both accessible and intimate and the acoustic in the church are terrific. The Noe Valley Ministry series is an eclectic program bringing local, national and international artists from a variety of musical forms and cultural traditions to Bay Area audiences and as such it contributes to the program's strategic objectives surrounding increased opportunities for diverse cultural expression. Moreover, community feel of the neighborhood church personalizes the audience experience in a way that supports our own objectives to make art a meaningful and accessible part of everyone's lives. Run on a tiny budget with one full time employee, SFLA has been resourceful in leveraging Kassin’s personal contacts both to high caliber musicians and to the Noe Valley community in which he works. However, during the past grant period the organization did not grow its attendance or its revenue as expected. In the upcoming grant period SFLA will focus on attracting new audiences, strengthening board involvement and, most crucially, catalyzing a serious effort to stimulate individual giving.