During its 70-plus years in Arizona, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ) has consistently included arts and cultural programs among its four corporate giving initiatives, not only with financial support but with volunteers.  In 2014, BCBSAZ volunteers donated more than 1,200 hours to a range of great causes.

In recognition of those efforts, the company received the 2008 Governor's Arts Awards for Business and remains deeply involved with the both the event and in promoting, supporting and advocating for a strong arts education for Arizona's children.

You'll see their involvement at venues across the Valley, from the Mesa Arts Center to the Phoenix Art Museum, and with individual arts and cultural organizations from Arizona Citizens for the Arts to the Tucson Festival of Books.

For more information, visit www.azblue.com.

The Arizona Opera tagline says it all:  We tell stories worth singing.

Originally founded in 1971 as the Tucson Opera Company, its inaugural season featured two performances of Rossini's The Barber of Seville.  Five years later, the renamed Arizona Opera was performing complete seasons in both Tucson and Phoenix.

Since its inaugural year, Arizona Opera has produced more than 170 fully staged operas and concerts, offering a blend of traditional repertoire.  Arizona Opera has also produced Wagner's complete Ring Cycle twice, a feat only achieved in North America by four other companies.

Today in an effort to energize and expand audiences for the arts, Arizona Opera has created Arizona Bold, a new community-based initiative to bring new and exciting stories to Arizona that feature relevant and family tales to Arizona - combining classic operas with new challenging and innovative work.

An example was this season's production of "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna," the world's first mariachi opera.

In addition to producing five grand operas each year in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona Opera offers in-school touring productions and numerous outreach events for children and adults of all ages.

Visit www.azopera.org for more information.

Following his speech for Americans for the Arts at the Kennedy Center in late March, 92-year old television writer and producer Norman Lear (All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Maude) wrote to The Hill, a publication for Congressional lawmakers and policy professionals, with a simple message.

Yes, things around the world are dire and "while many people feel hopeless, I don't want to wake up on the morning ... without hope.  We will save our world and when we do the door will have been kicked open by the Arts and the politics and politicians will follow."

He wrote that "music, film, literature, theater - arts that cause us to see and hear as one will lead the way.  While art allows us to delight in our individual taste, in its embrace we are all one.  This is what will help save us."

Lear's letter pointed to the centuries-long efforts to suppress art and that technology, "more specifically the Internet and all of the ways we connect to it - has increased the power of the arts exponentially" and how "Art works its magic and people often don't know that it's happening to them."

To read the complete letter, go to http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/236774-the-arts-will-save-us.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts' Business Volunteers for the Arts initiative is partnering with the AZ Commission on the Arts and Pave Program in Arts Entrepreneurship in a program offered by the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture to offer training in important capacity building techniques through workshop sessions and lunch table discussions. This half-day event is tailored to emerging and/or grassroots organizations.
 

The event will take place on Friday, May 15, 2015 at Ballet Arizona, 2835 East Washington Street, Phoenix, AZ 85034.

 There is a $25 fee to attend. To register click here. Additional information is available at phoenix.gov/arts.