2023 Prize: Visual Art

Mission:

The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts was established in 2021 to honor the legacy of Ariel Bybee and to foster the creation of new works by Latter-day Saint artists in disciplines that correspond to her varied career and interests in music and related arts. Each year, the Endowment will announce a call for submissions open to artists and scholars in one of nine, rotating categories: opera, dance, scholarship, art songs, youth education, hymns, visual arts, collaborative arts, and choral music. We encourage LDS composers from a variety of musical aesthetics and diverse backgrounds of identity to apply.

Invitation:

In our second year, The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is seeking submissions that will result in the creation of a visual artwork inspired by a specific piece of music of their choosing. This is to honor the legacy of Ariel Bybee and her connection to fine art. The application, therefore, consists of a narrative description of a work that the artist intends to create plus samples of existing works for the benefit of the jury’s deliberations. The artist may supply an initial rendering of the work. The artist’s work may be in any visual art medium. There are no restrictions nor preferences regarding the artist’s nationality, age, race, or gender. A blind jury process will be used to choose the winner. The selected project is expected to meet the highest artistic standards. The completed, winning work will be exhibited in New York City at the art gallery, Sargent’s Daughters, at a date to be mutually determined by the artist and gallery. The artist will retain ownership of the work and will grant permission to the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts to use its digital image on its website and communication platforms.

Applications:

Artists may submit applications beginning November 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022. Please read the following guidelines thoroughly.

2023 Prize: Visual Art

The winning artist will receive a $5,000 commission for a visual artwork inspired by a specific piece of music of their own choosing. The relationship between the two art disciplines is to be discernible. Additional specifications for the work including deadlines will be negotiated among the Ariel Bybee Endowment, the artist, and Allegra LaViola, owner and director of Sargent’s Daughters gallery. The commission amount will be paid to the artist in two parts: $1,000 after the announcement of the prize and signing an agreement with the Endowment; and $4,000 upon completion of the work. The Endowment intends to provide a subsidy for the artist to attend the exhibition opening, which will be scheduled at the discretion of the gallery. Potential sale of the work through the gallery will be negotiated separately between the gallery and the artist. 

Guidelines for Application

Eligibility:

We reiterate that we encourage artists from a variety of aesthetics and diverse backgrounds of identity to apply. There are no restrictions nor preferences regarding the artist’s nationality, age, race, or gender. Regarding religious affiliation, the sole limitation is that the artist be a member of, or willing to engage with, the community of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The prize is not eligible to members of the jury nor to the Endowment’s and the Center’s boards and committees.

Procedures of Application: 

An artist (or artists working as a team and who will share the prize) may submit only one (1) application.

The artist will provide a narrative of 400 words or less conceptualizing the work with particular attention paid to how music connects to the work. The artist may supply an initial rendering of the work. Note: The application requires only a proposal, not a finished artwork.

An artist will submit five (5) samples of previous works in the form of digital files as supporting images executed in the same media as the proposed project. These works must have been completed within the previous five years and should show the style of the expected work. (Note: In advance of being sent to the jury, identifying matter from images—signatures on a painting, for example—will be obscured by the jury moderator. Artists may elect to obscure identifying matter themselves in advance of application.) Applications will be uploaded using a Google form. Visit the following link [to come], fill out the form, and attach requested documents and files, namely: 

• Text document of 400 words or less, optional initial rendering.

• Five (5) digital images of previous works.

Note: For purposes of the submission platform, names of the applicant and contact information are required. Before adjudication, the moderator will replace the artists’ names with a numerical system to retain anonymity.

Please finalize all materials before submitting the application and note that all submissions are final and may not be altered once the application is complete and submitted. Failure to comply with the instructions above will result in disqualification of the application.

Deadlines:

Applications may be submitted beginning November 1, 2022. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2022. 

Guidelines for composer’s proposed work:

The artwork can be in any visual medium. It must be of a scale appropriate for gallery exhibition. This must be a new and original work created for the 2023 Prize. The artist is responsible for all materials, production, and creation of the work. The winning work is to be exhibited at Sargent’s Daughters gallery in New York City. In order to create a work suitable for exhibition, artists are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Contemporary Art shown at the gallery: https://www.sargentsdaughters.com/exhibitions

 
Jury:

The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts - 2023 Prize will be adjudicated between January 1 and March 1, 2023. The 2023 Prize jury consists of the following: Georgina Bringas, artist; Kent Christensen, artist; Janalee Emmer, director, Brigham Young University Museum of Art; Campbell Gray, retired director, The University of Queensland Art Museum; Brad Kramer, owner and director, Writ & Vision; Allegra LaViola, owner and director, Sargent’s Daughters; Neylan McBaine, CEO, Duet Partner; Kah Poon, photographer; and Warren Winegar, art advisor, Winegar Fine Art.

Process of adjudication:

• Round one: Jurors will review batches of submissions provided to them by the moderator. In all cases, names of the artists and identifying information will have been removed from proposals in order to enable a blind jurying process. Jurors will select leading candidates for further evaluation.

• Round two: Successful applications from the first round will pass to teams on the jury for additional evaluation, winnowing, and creation of a list of finalists.

• Round three: The full jury will meet to select a winner from the application finalists. Without exception, none of the jurors will be apprised of the identity of the artists under consideration until a final, unanimous decision is reached. The winner of the 2023 Prize will be announced on March 1, and all applicants will be informed of the jury results.The winner of the 2022 Prize will be announced on March 1, and all applicants will be informed of the jury results.

For questions about the call for submission or requests for assistance, email us: bybee@centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org

About Ariel Bybee:

Ariel Bybee (American, 1943-2018) was a mezzo-soprano who had a distinguished career as a soloist, voice teacher and university opera director. Most notably, Ariel sang 461 performances as a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera over the course of 18 consecutive seasons.

Bybee received a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in 1965. She later took advanced musical studies in New York where one of her voice teachers was Cornelius L. Reid. Bybee was an alumna of the Music Academy of the West where she attended in 1969.

Bybee sang at the Met in every season from 1977-95. She first earned accolades at the Met for her performance as Jenny the whore in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny when she replaced Teresa Stratas on very short notice. Further acclaim came from her performances as Annio in the Met's premiere of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito.

Bybee sang numerous leading roles at the Met including Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Niclausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She made her highly successful debut at the Washington, D.C. Opera in a new production of Menotti's The Consul and her European opera debut as Melisande at the Sofia Music Weeks in Bulgaria. She made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic (Lorin Maazel, conducting) in a concert performance of Elektra at Carnegie Hall.

Bybee's professional talents were discovered by Maestro Maurice Abravanel of the Utah Symphony and later by Kurt Herbert Adler of the San Francisco Opera. Adler invited Bybee to sing in San Francisco for several seasons, during which she appeared in many roles, including the title roles in Carmen, Musetta in La bohème and Inez in La favorita.

She first performed on the East Coast when she sang the title role of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the Tanglewood Music Festival. In the spring of 1985, Bybee appeared on stage with the New York City Ballet in its production of Songs of the Auvergne, and she debuted at the Ravinia Festival in Elektra conducted by James Levine. She made her debut in Kuhmo, Finland in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Vivaldi's Gloria.

Before making her debut with the San Francisco Opera Company, Bybee taught junior high school music for five years, first in Utah and then in California. Starting in 1993, Bybee began teaching private students in her New York studio, as well as teaching both at the Lee Strasberg Institute and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. For ten years, she was Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, teaching voice and directing operatic productions. In 2007, she and James E. Ford co-directed UNL's production of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella, which won the International Trophy (Grand Prize) in competition at the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera. When she became an emerita professor at UNL, the university endowed the Ariel Bybee Chair of Opera Performance in her honor. In 2008, Bybee moved to the Salt Lake City area where she taught voice at the University of Utah.