Arts Alliance announces award winners

The Arts Alliance Mountain Empire announces the 2023 winners of its 9th annual Arts Achievement Awards. They are Laken Bridges, Jack Hinshelwood, Tricia Matthews, Mary Munsey, and Glenn Patterson.

Laken Bridges is the administrator of the Art lab and the Director of Higher Education and Adult Learning at the William King Museum of Art in Abingdon. She oversees all of the Art Lab facilities for painting, drawing, clay, printmaking, and darkroom photography, as well as the museum’s education programs for teens, college students, and adults. She also manages the museum’s eleven studio artists.

Jack Hinshelwood has performed, taught, produced, and documented the heritage music of the Appalachian region for over fifty years. From 2010 to 2019 he was the Executive Director of The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Music Heritage Trail, developing music festivals and concerts in 19 counties in western Virginia. Currently, he is a co-producer and performer for “Doc at 100,” a touring concert celebrating the legacy of Doc Watson.

Tricia Matthews first performed at Barter Theatre in 2005 and over the next twenty years has performed and directed nearly 100 shows. She has starred as Donna in “Mama Mia,” Amanda in “The Glass Menagerie,” and Mary Poppins in “Mary Poppins,” as well as directing “Chicago,” and “The Bridges of Madison County.” Before coming to Barter she worked in regional theaters in Florida, Connecticut, and Arkansas.

Mary Munsey has had a thirty-year career as a public-school music teacher, a performer in various musical groups, a church choir director, and now as the director of the music department at Virginia Highlands Community College. She teaches piano, guitar, choir, and Old Time String Band classes, as well as organizing the musical offerings of the college’s Arts Array series. She has won several songwriting contests throughout the country.

Glenn Patterson is a talented actor and musician but is primarily known as the director of more than forty shows at Theatre Bristol including “Les Misérables,” “The Music Man,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and currently “The Little Mermaid.” For over 25 years he has served as the Music Director at Abingdon United Methodist Church and recently was licensed as a local pastor and appointed as the Associate Pastor at the church.

A Gala awards ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 18 at the Delta Hotel by Marriott (the former Holiday Inn) in Bristol, Virginia, to honor the winners. The Gala consists of a social hour, dinner, entertainment, a silent auction and the awards ceremony. Tickets are $100 for individuals, and tables for eight can be purchased for $800.

For tickets, purchase them on the website of the Arts Alliance Mountain Empire (under the Gala tab) or send a check to AAME Gala, Box 94, Bristol, TN 37621.

These awards come from these categories: Artist — achievement in theater, music, dance, visual arts or literary arts; Arts Educator — achievement in arts education in a college or university, primary or secondary school; Arts Administrators — achievement in the management of arts institutions; and Arts Advocates — achievement in sustaining the arts through volunteering or financial support.

The Arts Alliance Mountain Empire is an arts council formed as a service organization for artists, arts organizations and other cultural endeavors throughout the Mountain Empire. The mission of AAME is to nurture, advocate, and celebrate the arts. AAME fulfills its mission primarily as the publisher of A! Magazine for the Arts, and it has published an arts directory and sponsors a speakers’ series and workshops on arts-related topics.