Bella Szabo, executive director of the Springfield Area Arts Council, joins Community Voices to highlight several programs and creative opportunities available to the community.
The biennial Mayor’s Awards for the Arts is accepting nominations in 8 different categories until September 30, 2026. Categories include Individual Visual Artist, Individual Performing Artist, Individual Literary Artist, Arts Organization, Arts Volunteer, Arts Educator, Exceptional Arts Student, and Business Committed to the Arts. Rosie Gale of Ceramics made by Rosie is the award designer for this year.
Applications for the academic year 2026-2027 are open for the Arts in Education Grant, which awards K-12 schools within Sangamon and Menard counties grants of up to $1,000 to bring professional artists right into the classroom.
The new season of Poetry Out Loud is coming up, and the Springfield Area Arts Council is getting started on recruiting schools to participate in the 2027 competitions. This program connects high school students from across the country to participate in a dynamic poetry recitation competition, designed to improve their public speaking skills, help build confidence, and teach them about literary history and contemporary life.
Music at the Market is a free live music series held at the Old Capitol Farmers Market in Springfield from 10-11 p.m. every Saturday through October 10. Local artists are paid to perform under the partnership program between Springfield Area Arts Council and Downtown Springfield Inc. (DSI). Mandy Rose will be the final performance to wrap up the season on October 10, 2026.
Melissa Snider:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR Illinois. I'm your co-host, Melissa Snider. In the studio today, we have Bella Szabo. Bella is the executive director of the Springfield Area Arts Council. The Arts Council has been very busy creating some great opportunities for the community, and Bella is going to tell us a little about those opportunities.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah, we have something going on year round all the time. So we've wrapped up all of our summer programs like Levitt AMP Springfield, and now we're moving on to our Mayor's Awards for the Arts. We are also hosting music at the market through October. We've got Poetry Out Loud starting up as well, and we have an arts and education grant available. Funding requests are open currently for that. So we are always busy.
Melissa Snider:
Yeah, it really sounds like you are always busy. So let's dig into one of those.
Bella Szabo:
We can start with the Mayor's Awards for the Arts. This one, we partner with the City of Springfield, of course, the Office of the Mayor specifically, to present awards to the community. And our service area covers both Sangamon and Menard Counties. So the Mayor's Awards actually are open to everyone in Sangamon and Menard Counties. It's not just strictly Springfield, which is pretty fun. And we get to honor all of the artists, all the businesses, the volunteers, the students, the teachers, everything in between. amazing work that they do within our arts community. So we have eight different categories and nominations are open to the public so anybody can make a nomination. And it's just a really fun way to get together with your community and highlight everything that's amazing about what we've got going on and celebrate those fantastic people who make it all possible.
Melissa Snider:
So this is all ages.
Bella Szabo:
It is.
Melissa Snider:
Anybody in the community can do this.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
That's great. So what is an example of one of those nominations?
Bella Szabo:
Of nominations, I'll start with individual artists. We have three different categories of individual artists, which covers every type of art you can think of. So we have visual arts, performing arts, and literary arts. Last year's winner of the literary artist was John Paul Jaramillo, and he is a professor at Lincoln Land and a writer as well. And he's going to EMCEE our award ceremony this year. So that's just one example of one of our amazing artists in the community, Shatriya Smith. She was another literary artist who won four years ago now. We have just amazing people who get nominated, so it's hard to select the person who officially wins. But one of the coolest things about this program is we actually work with one local artist to create, design and make all of the awards that are given to our winners. And so these awards are actual pieces of artwork, like a sculpture, a painting, anything at all. And so what we did this year was we sent out a public announcement, a call for artists, for 3D artists specifically. And we are now working with Rosie Gale of Ceramics Made by Rosie. And she's going to design all of our awards and hand make them. So all of our winners are going to go home with a unique ceramic piece that they will get to display forever.
Melissa Snider:
I love that.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
So creative. Who came up with that idea?
Bella Szabo:
I don't know. That's something we've been doing since the beginning. Yeah. The Mayor's Awards has been going on probably for over 40 years. And that's what we've done this entire time. So I guess whoever started the Arts Council way back when.
Melissa Snider:
Let's just incorporate art in any way we can.
Bella Szabo:
Exactly.
Melissa Snider:
I love that.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
And then does the Arts Council vote?
Bella Szabo:
The way that we select who the winner is, we put together a panel of local professionals, people who are knowledgeable in the arts, as well as people who are artists themselves. And they come together, they read all the nominations for each category, and then we do a scoring process, and that's how we select the winners.
Melissa Snider:
I love this. It's really fun. It's so cool.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
When is the deadline for that?
Bella Szabo:
Submissions for nominations are not due until the very last day of September by 5 P.m. Nominations and the form is available on our website, SpringfieldArtsCode.org. On our webpage, you'll find all of the information about what it takes to nominate, who's eligible to be nominated and all of the different award categories of which there are eight.
Melissa Snider:
Well, that's great. I can't wait to see what everybody comes up with.
Bella Szabo:
Me too.
Melissa Snider:
That's incredible. Yeah, good to see it all.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
So let's talk about the Arts and Education Grant.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah.
Melissa Snider:
This is for K through 12 schools within the Sangamon and Menard counties to bring professional artists into the classroom.
Bella Szabo:
Yes. So this is a really fun and unique program in our community. So It started off as artist residencies for schools and it slowly evolved into a grant program where we are funded through the Susan Cook House Educational Trust and we're granted money to actually redistribute into our local schools so that any teacher, it doesn't have to be an art teacher, it could be a math teacher, a history teacher, could bring in an artist to help them teach whatever subject they may be talking about right now, just figure out a way to integrate the arts into the curriculum which is so important because the arts are always the first to be cut. I know schools always struggle with finding arts funding and this is a fantastic way and a very easy way to get up to $1,000 for artists to come right into the classroom. So these teachers get to work with professional artists and the students get to actually do some hands-on projects with them. So we've actually funded mural programs and we've funded live musicians to come in and do a performance. Anything you can think of. We've brought in local dancers to come and teach salsa to students, you know, things like that. We have so many artists in the area and we've been established for 50 years. So we know a lot of artists and the schools themselves know a lot of artists as well. So they'll submit their form to us and say, I have this idea and this is the person I want to work with. And so typically they'll already have an idea of what they want to do. There are times where schools are like, I know I want to bring an artist in. I know I want to do dance, but I don't know anybody. Can you help us? And we have somebody on our staff who has been with the Arts Council for over 14, 16 years, something like that. Sheila Walk and she's our arts education coordinator. And she actually helps all of our schools make sure that the program goes well. Sometimes she'll do visits just to see how things are going. She works one-on-one with a lot of the teachers themselves to make sure that the programs are what they need them to be and everything. And she'll suggest the artists, she'll suggest different ideas. If a teacher knows they want to do something, but they don't know what to do at all, she'll help you out with some fun ideas too.
Melissa Snider:
Awesome, kind of guide you along the way. Exactly.
Bella Szabo:
So how long has this?
Melissa Snider:
Been going on for.
Bella Szabo:
It's been going on for definitely over 10 years, but in the capacity that it is now, it's relatively new in the Arts Council's history because like I said, it used to be artist in residency. And so then it was kind of reshaped to kind of match what the schools needed at the time. And so it's been this grant program for years now. And we're able to grant funding to, I think last year we had 11 schools. Before that, schools. We're able to distribute a lot of funds to our community through this. Do you only have?
Melissa Snider:
A certain amount that you can give.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah, so the way that we fund this program is through donations that come in specifically for the grant itself. And we apply for a grant with the Susan Cook House Educational Trust. It's based out of Chicago. And they award us money to do this program. And so this academic year that's coming up, were awarded I think somewhere around $9,000 to give out to schools. So if every school applied for the full $1,000 we'd be able to award 9 schools with funding. But if they do 500, 200, whatever it may be, we can spread it even further. We used to only do up to $500 and that would cover 10 to 15 different schools to bring artists in. Since we received more grant money in most recent years, we are able to increase the grant award to 1000 so that the curriculum can kind of evolve into what the community needs now. So there's more funding available than there was in prior years. And it definitely can go pretty far. It can help with field trips. It can help with artists coming right into the school, right into the classroom. I mean, we've funded mural projects on $500 before, so it definitely goes a long way.
Melissa Snider:
Kind of gets their hand in that.
Bella Szabo:
Exactly.
Melissa Snider:
Well, we are in the studio with Bella Szabo, executive director of the Springfield Area Arts Council. And she is talking to us about some cool things going on that the Arts Council is having.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah.
Melissa Snider:
Let's talk about Poetry Out Loud.
Bella Szabo:
Oh, yes. Poetry Out Loud is another incredible program. It's, again, very unique to the area. So we work as a partner with the Illinois Arts Council. It's a state agency. And we run both the regional and statewide competitions for Poetry Out Loud. And this is a high school recitation competition. And it is specifically for high schoolers through 9th through 12th grades, homeschooling as well. And we specifically work within the central region for the central contest itself. But because we're partnering with the Illinois Arts Council, we work statewide as well to help coordinate the entire state's competitions. One thing that we do when we get started is we start with recruitment within our region of central Illinois. We do try to reach out to as many schools as we can. I'm sure we might miss some here or there, but we do always try to reach out to everybody. And if somebody is interested in getting involved, they can reach out to us. Sheila Walk is the arts education coordinator here at the Arts Council, and she's the one who oversees this particular program. So you can reach out to her directly. You can call us, e-mail us, go on to our website to learn more and find our phone number and our emails there. Everything's on the website. It's springfieldartsco.org. So we reach out to different schools, high schools specifically, and we offer the opportunity for them to participate in this world of poetry that helps them with public speaking skills. It teaches them history through poetry. It just brings them more confidence in being able to do a competition like this, especially once they get to the state level. They're competing against the top 14, I believe, high schoolers in the entire state. And then what's amazing is once we have our state contestant, they go on to the nationals and they compete against 52 other competitors from across the country. It includes US territories in addition to all 50 states. So there's Washington DC who has their own representative, Puerto Rico, I think the Virgin Islands as well. So there's so many amazing people that we get to meet across the entire country. It's an amazing opportunity. And the students just get to create this fantastic community within their own space of poetry, but across the entire country. It's so amazing.
Melissa Snider:
They could build so many skills there.
Bella Szabo:
Oh yes.
Melissa Snider:
Gear them up for success.
Bella Szabo:
Anything for high schoolers to be able to do. It's not a common thing. It's not very often that a high schooler gets to do something like that. What they do is they start in a classroom level competition and then it goes to a school-wide competition before it comes to us for the regional competition And then from the regional competition, we go on to state and then national. So there's lots of different steps that go into this.
Melissa Snider:
So we also have Music at the Market running through October.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah, Music at the Market, it's a really fun program that we partner with Downtown Springfield Inc on. And this particular program has been a partnership program for a couple of years. I believe it started maybe in 2019. So it's relatively new compared to the rest of the programs that we do. What we work with DSI on is bringing live musicians right into the farmers market and we provide them a paid opportunity. So this is like a professional gig for local musicians to be able to perform at the farmers market.
Melissa Snider:
Do you seek out these musicians?
Bella Szabo:
So what we do is we submit an open form to the public so people can essentially apply and let us know that they're interested. And if we're not able to fill all the slots, we have a repository of tons and tons of artists. So we can always reach out to and see if we can fill any slots that maybe don't get filled through that application process first. But it's a great way for us to be able to give up and coming musicians who've maybe never had a professional paid gig before an opportunity to do that.
Melissa Snider:
So where can they access this application form?
Bella Szabo:
So we always post it on our website and our social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. Now we're on LinkedIn. So applications are of course closed already for this particular season. We work on opening up applications, usually the end of winter or early spring every year. And then we book out the entire season. So we have everybody booked for Music at the Market by usually April. And it gets started in May and runs through October. It's every second Saturday of the month in downtown, of course, at the Old State Capitol Farmers Market.
Melissa Snider:
We have just a variety of so many things going on. Have you done any of these, like submitted art in the Mayor's Awards or done music at all?
Bella Szabo:
Oh, have I personally?
Melissa Snider:
Yeah, I'm curious about your art.
Bella Szabo:
Oh yeah.
Melissa Snider:
Are you an artist?
Bella Szabo:
I am. So I'm a ceramic artist. And unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to get into the studio and make anything in maybe a year or two. So mostly what I do right now is like digital graphic design, web design, stuff like that, which is honestly more so for work because we have, as so many programs, we need flyers and marketing materials for all of it. And so I've kind of picked that up. So I usually make the posters and a lot of our social media posts, graphics and stuff like that. So graphic design is kind of what I'm doing right now.
Melissa Snider:
I love that. We have to keep graphic design alive.
Bella Szabo:
Yes, so, true. And that's one of the things about the Arts Council is like we work with artists. We want to make sure that the arts are forefront with everything we do.
Melissa Snider:
Artists need to be supported.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah. And anytime we host a program like this, one of our core missions is to make sure that artists are paid for their work and their time. So like the Mayor's Awards for the Arts, the designer of the awards, she's getting paid to make these awards. All of our musicians who perform at music at the market, they are paid for their time. We do a summer series called Artists in the Park. They are paid. We do Levitt Amp Springfield. All of our musicians and our dancers are paid. Our ASL interpreters are paid. So it's very important to us to make sure that artists are paid for their time.
Melissa Snider:
Yeah.
Bella Szabo:
We do have First Night Springfield coming up in December. It's our New Year's Eve celebration of the arts, but it's kind of far. It's something we've been doing for 39 years. and this is our 40th anniversary. And First Night Springfield is part of the First Night nationwide program series. So it got started in Boston and the idea behind it was to provide families a safe, alcohol-free, family-friendly environment. You can bring your kids out on New Year's Eve and enjoy a fun celebration together. And it specifically highlights the arts. So you have the visual arts incorporated with performing arts and literary arts as well. And so this will be our 40th year doing it.
Melissa Snider:
Hard to find something like that on a new year.
Bella Szabo:
Yes.
Melissa Snider:
Well, Bella, thank you for keeping us in the loop.
Bella Szabo:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Melissa Snider:
Once again, we have Bella Szabo. She is the executive director of the Springfield Area Arts Council.
Community Voices is a production of NPR Illinois.
