News

Three Performing Artists Receive Individual Artist Fellows

From Jared Morrison, Director of Performing Arts –

The Tennessee Arts Commission is proud to announce the winners of this year’s Individual Artist Fellowships in the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Performing Arts program area. These $5,000 awards are given annually to professional artists practicing in the disciplines of dance, music, and theatre. This year, we received applications from artists in the categories of Acting or Directing (theatre), Classical Vocal or Instrumental Performance (music), and Solo Dance Performance or Choreography (dance). While we received many outstanding applications, these three Tennesseans were selected by distinguished out-of-state adjudicators for the quality of their work and artistic excellence.

Rebecca Hoback

Rebecca Hoback (Solo Dance Performance) is a dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher based in Nashville. She moved to Tennessee from her native Wisconsin in 2011 to join Nashville Ballet 2 and became a founding member of New Dialect, a contemporary dance company. In addition to Ms. Hoback’s performance schedule, she is the founder of “Body View,” a community outreach initiative, creative process, choreographic collaboration, and contemporary dance performance series that seeks to promote a healthy self-image. In recognition of this work, she received support through the Metro Nashville Arts Commission’s THRIVE program and has been able to bring the program to more than 220 individuals in Middle Tennessee. “I want to contribute to developing the Nashville dance audience and to help grow the local palette for dance,” says Ms. Hoback. “I believe that dance has the capacity to change, challenge, and nourish people and am committed to continuing my creative ventures with this ethos in mind.”

Patrick Dailey (Classical Voice Performance) is a countertenor based in Nashville and serving on the faculty of Tennessee State University. Mr. Dailey has been praised for his “powerful and elegant countertenor voice” by the Los Angeles Daily News and as a “vocal standout” by Boston Classical Review. He performs regularly with Harlem Opera Theater, Nashville’s ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra (NC), Soulful Symphony, Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra among many others. As a scholar and teacher, he has lectured at the Center for Black Music Research’s Black Vocality Symposium and served as Artist-in-Residence at Southern University, Prairie View A&M University, the University of Arkansas, and Vanderbilt University. “I was basically born and raised on the campus of Tennessee State University, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers were my first spark into classical singing”, he remarks. “The love that my village and these institutions engulfed me in told me there were no limits. Being equipped with this love and knowledge, my goal is to offer my resources to young people and communities too often overlooked.”

Jon Royal

Jon Royal (Directing) is a freelance theatre director working in and around Middle Tennessee. He was named “Best Theatre Director” in 2019 by the Nashville Scene and has created work for the Nashville Repertory Theatre, Actors Bridge Ensemble, Nashville Children’s Theatre, and Street Theatre Company, just to name a few. Mr. Royal’s work is heavily influenced by his perspective as an African American. “I’m a black director. That is to say, I am not a director “who happens to be black.” I mean it with intention. To me, it means all of the experiences that I have had with the world, to this point, have been shaped by my race and ethnicity, in some way. I became an artist to address disparity and inequity in this culture.”

Congratulations to the 2021 Tennessee Arts Commission’s Performing Arts Fellowship recipients.