Sally Ordway Irvine Awards

Nominations for the 2011 Sally Awards are no longer being accepted. Thank you to all who submitted. Winners will be announced at Sally Award ceremony on March 26, 2012 at the Ordway.

Since 1992, the Sally Awards have honored individuals and institutions that strengthen and enrich our entire state with their commitment to the arts and arts education. The awardees’ talents and determination help make Minnesota’s quality of life excellent and its culture unique and rich.

The Sally Award is based on the "First Trust Award" presented in 1986 to Sally Ordway Irvine, whose initiative, vision and commitment inspired the creation of Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Her award is permanently installed in the Ordway’s Marzitelli Foyer.

Feature Article
Minnesota Public Radio features Ordway's search for Sally Award Nominations with the article: "Ordway Adds a Sally and Looks for Nominations Outside the Metro" Read >

To honor Sally’s commitment to all of the arts, the Sally Awards are presented annually to acknowledge achievement and contribution in the three areas for which Sally herself was recognized: Vision, Initiative and Commitment. A fourth category, Education, was added in 1996 to acknowledge the importance of education in nurturing a passion for the arts in future generations. In 2010, another category was added to complement the Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s focus on engaging more people in the arts. The Arts Access category recognizes the importance of increasing access and citizen participation in the arts. Each year, one person or organization is honored in each of these five categories:

Arts Access
Recognizes extraordinary efforts to engage a broader and more diverse audience in the arts, or to deepen the involvement that Minnesota citizens have with the arts. This award, added in 2010, was inspired by the Legacy Amendment and its impact on enhancing access to the arts statewide.

Vision
Recognizes exemplary creative thinking and/or strategic leadership in support of a particular project or development of a body of work that will have long-term impact on the community. Examples include creation of new artistic/cultural opportunities, expanding access to the arts, or leading the community in new directions.

Initiative
Recognizes bold new steps taken by an established or emerging artistic or cultural individual/organization that has had a significant impact on strengthening Minnesota's artistic/cultural community.

Commitment
Recognizes lifetime achievement, contribution, and leadership in the arts and/or culture.

Education
Recognizes an individual/organization or particular project that has had a significant impact on education or mentoring in the arts and has contributed to increasing knowledge about the arts throughout the community.

View a list of past recipients >

2010 Sally Award Recipients

The 2010 Sally Ordway Irvine Awards were held on March 21, 2011.  The Ordway gratefully acknowledges Minnesota Public Radio and the Minnesota State Arts Board for their partnership in making the 2010 Sally Awards possible.

The 2010 Sally Award winners are:

ARTS ACCESS: Amy Stoller Stearns and the Historic Holmes Theatre/DLCCC

INITIATIVE: Kathy Mouacheupao and the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT)

COMMITMENT: Willie Murphy

EDUCATION: Anton Treuer

VISION: Michelle Hensley and Ten Thousand Things Theater  

SAmy StollerArts Access Award: Amy Stoller Stearns and the Historic Holmes Theatre/DLCCC
Amy Stoller Stearns and her family moved from Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes in 2002. After working in public relations and marketing for many years, she wasn’t sure what she would do in a smaller town. Then she heard that the new Detroit Lakes Community Cultural Center, which housed the Historic Holmes Theatre, was looking for a box office manager. Stoller Stearns talked her way into a job and was tasked with setting up the box office and creating the marketing for this new theater. She fell in love with the job and the place, and a year later she was named the executive director for the Holmes Theatre.

Today, the Holmes Theatre is a hub of performing arts activity in northwestern Minnesota, having hosted more than 300 shows and events. Performances range from the Canadian Brass to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and everything in between, including local, regional, national and international performers. It is important to Stoller Stearns and the theater staff that the arts be accessible to everyone in Becker County and so they offer artist visits to schools, discounts/free tickets to school groups, performances appealing to diverse audiences, and partnerships with area nonprofits. When it opened nine years ago, no one quite knew what the Holmes Theatre would become, but today it’s hard for most to imagine life in Detroit Lakes without it. 

The Arts Access Award was presented by special guest Senator Dick Cohen.

Kathy MouacheupaoInitiative Award: Kathy Mouacheupao and the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT)
Kathy Mouacheupao is the executive director for the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT), the leading Hmong American arts organization in the country. CHAT grew out of Pom Siab Hmoob Theater, established in 1993 to put Hmong stories in front of audiences. In 1998, organizers decided to expand their focus beyond theater in order to serve more Hmong artists, and changed the name to CHAT. Today, CHAT provides free art classes for youth, creates opportunities for leadership and professional development for artists, and offers memorable experiences for the community. Its role has evolved into a social justice organization that recognizes the power of the arts to affect change. CHAT envisions a vibrant community where Hmong American artists are inspired to share their perspectives and empowered to challenge life’s boundaries

The annual Hmong Arts and Music Festival, sponsored by CHAT, has become a community celebration of Hmong culture, arts and expression. In 2007, CHAT hosted the first annual Fresh Traditions Fashion Show, an innovative exhibit of functional art designed by Hmong artists blending contemporary designs with traditional Hmong fabrics. CHAT received the first Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Arts Achievement Award in 2009 in recognition of its work to incorporate the arts into the daily lives of communities.

 

Willie MurphyCommitment Award: Willie Murphy
Willie Murphy is a soul, R&B, blues and rock legend. A charter member of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, he has performed with everyone from Jefferson Airplane and Joan Baez to Muddy Waters and Carl Perkins.

Born in Minneapolis, Murphy started playing the piano at age four and soon developed a passion for rhythm and blues. It was while hanging around the West Bank music scene that he met folk musician “Spider” John Koerner. Together they began to write songs and tour the club and festival circuit, eventually producing the iconic Elektra release “Running, Jumping, Standing Still” and landing a top spot at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival. But Murphy was eager to return to his R&B roots, and formed a new band, Willie and the Bees, that went on to become underground legends. The Bees were also featured on Bonnie Raitt’s first Warner Bros. album that Willie produced in 1971. After the Bees’ final gig in 1984, Murphy started playing solo blues and rock piano, and launched his own label, Atomic Theory, which produced great local musicians like Becky Thompson, Boiled in Lead and The New International Trio. Now, Murphy surprises his fans once again with his new genre-bending release on Red House Records, “A Shot of Love in a Time of Need,” featuring soul, jazz, funk, rock and folk.

Anton TreuerEducation Award: Anton Treuer
Anton Treuer is professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University. He has a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is editor of the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language and author of eight books including “The Assassination of Hole in the Day”and “Ojibwe in Minnesota,” recently named “Minnesota’s Best Read for 2010” by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Dr. Treuer has championed Minnesota’s traditional indigenous art forms and has worked tirelessly to expand our definition of the arts to include oral narrative and story performance, especially as they intersect with the Ojibwe language. His dedication to preserve, revitalize and educate others about Ojibwe language, culture, and artistic heritage have earned him over 30 prestigious awards and fellowships from many organizations, including the American Philosophical Society, the MacArthur Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Michelle HensleyVision Award: Michelle Hensley and Ten Thousand Things TheateMichelle Hensley is the founder and artistic director of Ten Thousand Things Theater, known across the country for bringing the highest quality theater to audiences in prisons, homeless shelters and housing projects, while engaging veteran theater goers as well. She has directed more than 40 productions including “The Good Person of Szechwan,” “Measure for Measure,” “Antigone,” “The Tempest,” and “Richard III,” along with musicals such as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Hensley has been awarded fellowships by the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation, and City Pages has honored her as Theater Artist of the Year and as Best Director in multiple years. She received a 2010 Ivey Award (for “Othello”), and was a winner of the Francesca Primus Prize given by the American Theater Critics Association for outstanding contributions to the American theater by a female artist. This past year, the company was named Best Small Theater in the Twin Cities by City Pages, and the company engaged in an exciting partnership with New York City's prestigious Public Theater, touring “Measure for Measure” to underserved audiences in New York.