Heroes come in all shapes and sizes with hero­ics from the small­est of deeds through to life-giving sacrifices.

Because of this, the Van­cou­ver Island Sym­phony will be hon­or­ing fire­fight­ers, police offi­cers, search and res­cue per­son­nel and oth­ers who per­form heroic deeds at the Port The­atre on Sat­ur­day night.

In Heroes For­ever, the VI Sym­phony hon­ors heroes in an immensely mov­ing pro­gram of the most stir­ring music known, from Beethoven’s Egmont Over­ture, express­ing exal­ta­tion for one man’s stand against oppres­sion, to Elgar’s thought pro­vok­ing Nim­rod.

Parksville Qualicum Beach News, Jan­u­ary 24, 2012

Sit­ting qui­etly in a cor­ner of Stu­dio B, Alan Greg­son dips his paint­brush into a Mason jar of water before col­lect­ing a dab of pale green pig­ment on its tip and apply­ing it to the leaf of a glad­i­o­lus on the paper in front of him.

Nearby, instruc­tor Carmel Clare helps Wendy Riley make some deci­sions about her own flo­ral water­colour — a coun­try gar­den scene — while next to them, Riley’s sis­ter Jill Richard­son brushes oils onto her own paint­ing of a woman in 1920s garb.

In all, there are seven adult stu­dents with nose to can­vas inside the Neigh­bour­hood Art Stu­dios on this Thurs­day morning.

Brenda Ander­son — Lan­g­ley Times, Jan­u­ary 23, 2012

The 1920s roared back to life Sat­ur­day night as a sold-out Mayor’s Gala for the Arts at Kam­loops Con­ven­tion Cen­tre raised $25,000 for the city’s three lead­ing arts organizations.

Each year the joint fundraiser acquires a lit­tle more lus­ter, build­ing momen­tum to attract inter­est for the next annual.

This year set a new stan­dard as 375 atten­dees paid $100 each for a sump­tu­ous four-course din­ner inspired by a decade known for its lib­er­at­ing cre­ative expression.

Mike Youds, The Kam­loops Daily News, Jan­u­ary 23, 2012

In Chemai­nus, on Van­cou­ver Island
Monday, September 10, to Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 13, 2012  with optional days Sep­tem­ber 14 and 15, 2012

What you will learn dur­ing THIS con­fer­ence  will change the way you influ­ence your com­mu­nity, your busi­ness and work in the future.

Top­ics and infor­ma­tion cov­ered:
•    How to ori­ent eco­nomic devel­op­ment through a whole spec­trum of oppor­tu­ni­ties
•    Eco­nomic devel­op­ment through wine, his­toric, cul­tural, arts, golf, and div­ing tourism.
•    What makes lin­ger­ing in the com­mu­nity con­ve­nient and enjoy­able.
•    How to ana­lyze your community’s poten­tial from within as opposed to what has been done else­where.
•    Imag­i­na­tion - ordi­nary doesn’t count sig­nage and mural art work­shop.
•    Munic­i­pal mar­ket­ing at its most cre­ative.
•    The process of reju­ve­na­tion from a BIA and munic­i­pal per­spec­tive.
•    Worldly insights into tourism and com­mu­nity brand­ing.
•    The lat­est Mural tech­niques, paints, can­vas, tape art and related top­ics.
•    Social­iz­ing to meet all the experts.
•    Options for tours and sight­see­ing on Van­cou­ver Island BC Canada

This con­fer­ence is for mural­ist, eco­nomic devel­op­ment exec­u­tives, painters, artists, tourism boards, munic­i­pal CEOs and deci­sion mak­ers, cre­ative indi­vid­u­als, Fed­eral and Provin­cial gov­ern­ment staff, archi­tects and design­ers, graphic artists in short nearly every­one!  Reg­is­ter here.

The Sid Williams The­atre is seek­ing a 30 per cent increase in its annual pub­lic fund­ing after three years of belt-tightening.

The extra cash is needed so it can con­tinue to offer a wide vari­ety of pro­gram­ming and sus­tain a facil­ity well used by local groups for their own pro­duc­tions and events.

The 520-seat the­atre, which is owned by the City of Courte­nay but run by a non-profit soci­ety, is extremely well used com­pared to many other the­atres in the province.

It is booked for around 250 nights a year for both pub­lic and pri­vate events, and has just under 40,000 ‘active patrons’ — peo­ple who book tick­ets for shows or who are reg­u­lar users in other ways.

Philip Round, Comox Val­ley Echo, Jan­u­ary 20, 2012

The direc­tors of the Burn­aby Arts Coun­cil aren’t just vol­un­teer admin­is­tra­tors — many of them are artists, too. Their work is on dis­play at the arts council’s Deer Lake Gallery this month in the ongo­ing Direc­tors’ Exhi­bi­tion.

The exhi­bi­tion includes work by Bill Thom­son, Denise Jef­frey, Farhad Amini, Sophie St. Pierre, Linda Lewis, Irene McCutcheon and Brian Daniel.

The exhi­bi­tion is under­way till Feb. 5. It’s the first in a busy year full of exhibits at the gallery.

Julie MacLel­lan, Burn­aby Now, Jan­u­ary 20, 2012

Expe­ri­ence the joy of a per­for­mance by five of Canada’s finest emerg­ing opera singers.

The per­form­ers – Dominique Côté, Ric­cardo Ian­nello, Miriam Khalil, Andrew Love and Sylvia Szadovszki – all have roles in Pacific Opera Victoria’s main­stage pro­duc­tion of Car­men and are part of Pacific Opera’s Res­i­dent Artist Pro­gram.

Prin­ci­pal coach Robert Hol­lis­ton accom­pa­nies on piano and intro­duces the musi­cal selections.

Nanaimo News Bul­letin, Jan­u­ary 16, 2012

Bal­let Kelowna is los­ing its admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor to an international-level base­ball collection.

In inter­view Tues­day, Ali­son Moore said she has accepted a posi­tion work­ing with Mark Rucker’s Tran­scen­den­tal Graph­ics, a vir­tual col­lec­tion of 19^th Cen­tury base­ball images. The oppor­tu­nity to work on the col­lec­tion was sim­ply too good to pass up.

“I am going to assist as a cura­tor to help Mark Rucker share these images with the world,” she said, not­ing Rucker is con­sid­ered one of the fore­most schol­ars in 19^th cen­tury Amer­i­can baseball.

Jen­nifer Smith — Kelowna Cap­i­tal News, Jan­u­ary 17, 2012

Two local orga­ni­za­tions are prov­ing how art and sci­ence can work together.

The Okana­gan Sci­ence Cen­tre (OSC) and Gallery Ver­tigo have teamed up for a unique art exhi­bi­tion that will be part of an inter­na­tional sci­ence con­fer­ence being held next month.

And the pub­lic is being asked to par­tic­i­pate by shar­ing their view on sci­ence through art.

On Sat­ur­day, both the OSC and Ver­tigo will open their doors and sup­ply mate­ri­als and inspi­ra­tion for peo­ple to cre­ate their own works of art in the Sci­ence as Art initiative.

Ver­non Morn­ing Star, Jan­u­ary 20, 2012

Whistler arts and com­mu­nity groups hope to have a bit more breath­ing space after the Gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia per­ma­nently rein­stated $15 mil­lion in provin­cial gam­ing grants.

In an announce­ment this month, B.C. Pre­mier Christy Clark said the fund is being raised to $135 mil­lion, effec­tive imme­di­ately, though it is still well below the $150 mil­lion it was when the cuts occurred in August 2009. Groups can apply in Feb­ru­ary and in the­ory have funds for use later this year.

Cathryn Atkin­son, Pique Mag­a­zine, Jan­u­ary 19, 2012

In 2008/2009, 15 Whistler groups received $259,730. The gut­ting of the fund the fol­low­ing year meant this dropped to 13 groups receiv­ing $141,109. In 2010/2011, the amount for Whistler had crept back up to $211,450. The total amount for expen­di­ture this year is not yet known.

Leah Batisse, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Whistler Museum, said the evap­o­ra­tion of their gam­ing grant had a neg­a­tive impact to pro­gram­ming that was imme­di­ately felt.