It’s almost 2011. What are your resolutions? To expand your mind? To introduce your family to a creative activity? To try something you’ve never done before? If you said “yes” to any of these, then the Beck Center is where you want to be in 2011.

With more than 140 artistic opportunities each week, you will find something just right for you and your family—dance, music, theater, and visual arts, including drawing, painting, pottery, and more. In addition to learning something new, students make friends, experience new things, and expand their interests.

We’ve made our own resolution this year…to expand class registration options by offering convenient online registration. That’s right! Beginning January 2011, you may register for arts education classes, check account balances, make payments, print class schedules, and review your history all through our newly redesigned website.

SEE WINTER/SPRING 2011 CLASS CATALOG

Be the first to see the newest store in Lakewood! Heirloom Home, at 18119 Detroit Avenue, is opening its doors on Saturday, December 4 with a winter Open House.

Filled to the brim with antiques, collectibles, and beautiful jewelry, it is the perfect place to purchase your holiday gifts. Select wonderful decorative pieces that have taken an evolutionary journey to become a family’s keepsake.

Be part of the Heirloom Home mission to help children grow up in the world of the arts and nurture their growth and development. Proceeds from all store sales will provide scholarships for children to attend classes in dance, theater, visual arts, and music at the Beck Center for the Arts.

Bring a copy of this post and save 10%! Not only will your loved ones and friends receive unique and special gifts, but you’ll also be giving the gift of the arts to children, who will create lasting memories of their own as they participate in all of the wonderful programs at the Beck.

Store hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. For more information, call 216-406-7530.

This is traditionally the time of the year to reflect and give thanks. At the Beck Center for the Arts, our thoughts turn gratefully to our supporters with warm appreciation. You have enabled us to provide exceptional arts education and entertainment and to contribute to the vitality of our community. We are deeply thankful.

Every day the Beck Center makes dreams come true, whether it's dazzling a preschooler and her grandfather with Joseph's rainbow of colors or helping a shy child build confidence through acting. We just can't say it enough - we couldn't do it without you!

Please consider making a generous tax-deductible contribution to the Beck Center today. Your gift will help us meet our $40,000 campaign goal so that we can continue to educate and entertain our community.

To make a secure online donation, visit our website here, or mail your contribution.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family from the Beck Center family!

It is with great sadness that we report that Jocelyn Chang, a longtime member of the Beck Center Music Faculty, has passed away. Our deepest sympathy goes to her husband and Beck Center faculty member, Michael Leese.

Jocelyn was a champion of harp and new music, participating in festivals, conferences, workshops, and concerts while working directly with composers to perform their music for all types of audiences. She commissioned and premiered many works for harp by composers from all over North America, Europe, and Taiwan, where she founded the harp department at the Chinese Cultural University and taught full-time from 1977 to 1981. She was a leader in the exploration of a revolutionary new invention, the Dilling harp. She commissioned and premiered more than 70 works expressly for this instrument, either solo or in combination with other instruments or choir.

Jocelyn served as principal harpist and a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Her talent for improvisation has been showcased in collaborations in music, dance, theater, poetry, visual art, sculpture, and performance art. She performed on radio and television in the U.S., Romania, and Bulgaria, and appeared on more than two dozen CDs and videos. Her harp/flute duo with composer/flutist Michael Leese performed more than 100 times a year in venues ranging from experimental theater to corporate dinner parties, concert series, and worship services.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and Cleveland State University, she has taught at CSU, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Kent State University, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland Music School Settlement, and Beck Center for the Arts.

Jocelyn will be missed by all of us at Beck Center and by her many students, friends, and fans throughout the Cleveland area.

The Beck Center has eye-catching new signage overlooking its rear entrance thanks to the help of Eagle Scout candidate Scott Legeza of Boy Scout Troop #575. You are now greeted with the center’s name in bold silver lettering against a brilliant red background. Legeza coordinated this renovation, unveiled mid-October, for his Eagle Scout project.

As a past Beck Center student, Legeza chose us as his way to “give back to the Beck” after nine years of involvement here. He started at Beck in theater classes at the age of five and has performed in several youth productions, including The Wizard of Oz and Honk! Jr., as well as with the Chamber Choir.

Legeza began his initial work on this project back in March 2010 when he met with Beck’s Larry Goodpaster to discuss potential community service opportunities. "Scott had many great ideas. We wanted to choose a project that was lasting and made a visible impact on the Beck,” says Goodpaster. “Updating our primary entrance for students and patrons seemed the perfect fit. We are grateful for Scott’s lasting gift to the Beck and the support of his troop, friends, and family."

To raise the money needed to buy the supplies for the job, Legeza organized a car wash in the parking lot of a local business. Then, after months of planning, he recruited more than 50 volunteers, including fellow Boy Scouts, Beck staff and students, family, and friends, to work on the project over several weekends in September and October.

With the project now completed, Legeza says the most valuable lesson he has learned from this experience is how to organize and lead a large group of volunteers. Soon Legeza will begin planning a special ceremony with his scoutmaster for the presentation of his Eagle Scout award. A freshman at St. Ignatius High School, he plans to continue with scouting throughout high school.

Beck Center is pleased to present our new and improved website with easy navigation, current news and events, and a snapshot of the creativity that happens here everyday. We invite you to subscribe to our RSS (located at the bottom of the page), which delivers the latest Beck news directly to you.

Over the coming months, we will make continuous improvements to the site. One major upgrade coming in January 2011 is online registration for arts education classes and programs. Look for more information soon.

Thank you, and happy navigating!

Beck Center’s Cartooning instructor Len Peralta has seen some high profile success during the last month as a CNN Editor's Choice project on their homepage.  Len’s Geek A Week, a compilation of 52 online trading cards featuring celebrity geeks and nerds, is very popular. To read about the project, visit CNN's website.

Len is also about to publish a collaborative book with writer Trace Beaulieu called Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children. To sneak a peek at some of Len's illustrations, see this blog site.

The Beck Center for the Arts and HourPower, LLC have joined together for a special fundraiser that will create scholarships for children to attend classes in dance, theater, visual arts, and music.

HourPower, LLC is a Cleveland-based company that has developed a new type of stylish, high quality timepieces for men and women that open to a hidden compartment for engraved words and a treasured photo. Your own custom message and personal photo make them a meaningful gift that will be cherished forever.

HourPower is eager to give back to a community that has embraced its company by helping children grow up in the world of the arts and nurture their growth and development. You too can help! Purchase timepieces from HourPower, and 20% of your purchase will be donated to the Beck Center. Not only will your loved ones and friends receive unique and loving gifts, but you’ll also be giving the gift of the arts to children who will create lasting memories of their own as they participate in all of the wonderful programs at the Beck.

Watches can be viewed and bought directly online, at the Beck Café, or by phone at 440.253.0304 or 800.463.8385. Enter the code beck2010 for a 10% discount.

Eight current and former Beck students have landed youth parts in Opera Cleveland's production of Pagliacci at the State Theater, November 11 through 14.

The students are as follows: Nicole Coury, Maggie Devine, Deborah Garner, Tess Marjanovic, Isabela Moner, Jordan Morse, Courtney Nelson, and Allie Norris. Beck talent is well represented; only 12 were chosen to participate!

Congratulations!

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which opens December 3 at the Beck Center, often employs a youth chorus as part of the experience. Beck’s production will be no exception. The professional theater has just cast 16 young singers/dancers for the show. Artistic Director Scott Spence is especially thrilled that Beck Center Youth Theater students fared so well in the process, winning 11 of those 16 roles! Beck students include Kydon Elam, Gavin Gill, Tristan Irvin, Anna Jaffe, Tyler Key, Julia Krueger, Bianca Legeza-Narvaez, Marlee McGorray, Anna Ostrander, Jillian Salis, and Morgan Williams. The Youth Choir also features Beck Dance student June Wilson.

Break a leg!