Amistad Center Year-End Celebration is Nov. 5

The Amistad Center for Art & Culture will celebrate the organization’s 27^th successful year, and mark The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation’s 50^th year of supporting excellence in the arts, at their annual year-end event on Wednesday, November 5.

The evening will be highlighted by a special performance by noted musician and scholar Willie Ruff of the Yale School of Music. The Roberts Foundation will be awarded The Amistad Center’s Millard H. Pryor, Jr. Award for Service. The event will take place at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford at 6:15 p.m.

The Amistad Center, located within the Wadsworth Museum, is dedicated to celebrating art and culture influenced by people of African American descent through education, scholarship and social experiences.

The Amistad Center’s annual meeting event is free and open to the public.

A Membership Appreciation Reception will immediately follow the program for Amistad Center members. Members may RSVP to the Reception at amistadcenter@wadsworthantheneum.com

The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation is a private, special purpose foundation founded in 1964. In accordance with its founders’ wishes, the foundation is dedicated to supporting and encouraging excellence in the arts throughout Connecticut's Capital Region. The Foundation focuses its support on the creation, presentation and performance of works of art, and has awarded more than $8 million to more than 150 area nonprofits.

A musician and scholar of wide-ranging interests and influence, Willie Ruff plays French horn and bass and is an author, lecturer, and educator. On faculty at the Yale School of Music since 1971, Professor Ruff has also been on faculty at U.C.L.A., Dartmouth, and Duke University. He is the founding director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship program at Yale, and his work in bringing jazz artists to Yale and New Haven public schools earned him the Governor’s Arts Award in 2000 and the Sanford Medal, the Yale School of Music’s highest honor, last year.

“Our annual celebration is not only an opportunity to mark our organization’s accomplishments this past year but a wonderful way to express our appreciation to our members and to those who contribute so much to our cultural experiences, said Olivia S. White, Executive Director of The Amistad Center. “We are especially pleased to honor the extraordinary and enduring support provided by the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation to arts organizations throughout Greater Hartford, including the Amistad Center.”

In recognition of the first century of the St. Louis Blues, Ruff, Professor of Music and Director of the Ellington Fellowship at Yale, will perform a short and entertaining multi-media program describing the evolution of this iconic music.

The Amistad Center’s collection of 7,000 works of art, artifacts and ephemera documents nearly the entire history of the literary, artistic, military, enslaved, and free lives of Black people in America and inspires a range of exhibitions and public programs and events.

For more information on the Annual Celebration and the Amistad Center, visit www.AmistadArtandCulture.org or call 860-838-4133.