She was formally offered the job leading the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts during the board of directors’ quarterly meeting.

The appointment was hailed by Mayor Brandon Scott in a news release that arrived almost immediately after the board meeting ended, indicating he is confident the city’s previously contentious relationship with BOPA has been repaired.

“Robyn is a lifelong Baltimorean, proven leader and convener who has a vision that deeply understands the creativity, energy and talent that define Baltimore,” Scott said in the release. “Her ability to foster innovation, inspire confidence, and build and maintain relationships makes her the right person to fill this important role.”

Murphy’s appointment as BOPA’s CEO also required her to resign as BOPA’s board chair, a position that will be filled by director Scott Tucker.

BOPA is a quasi-governmental agency that helps plan city events like Artscape and other public celebrations. It also operates a handful of facilities, from School 33 Art Center to The Cloisters Castle, and is responsible for distributing about $500,000 in state funds annually to artists and performing groups.

Murphy noted during the board meeting that a one-year contract for BOPA — which is being rebranded as “Create Baltimore” — was approved by the Baltimore City Council in late spring “without any dissent.” The organization’s annual contribution from the city — $2.8 million this year — has also been ratified.

“Robyn Murphy is the right type of leader for this moment,” Derrick Chase, an artist and BOPA board member, said in the release. “She’s a gifted communicator who listens to creatives and builds the necessary ecosystem to move Baltimore’s art community forward.”

Murphy is BOPA’s fourth CEO in the past three years. Two of her predecessors, Donna Drew Sawyer and Rachel Graham, clashed publicly with Scott and were quickly ousted.

Sawyer was removed in January 2023 after canceling the city’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade with less than two weeks’ notice. A furious Scott declared the city would mount its own parade in honor of the slain civil rights leader and demanded that BOPA’s board remove her.

Graham had been in the job just six months when she drew Scott’s ire in September by requesting a $1.8 million emergency bailout from the city. She said she had only recently discovered that the cash-strapped organization had been running annual deficits since at least the 2018-19 fiscal year.

Graham resigned two months later after Scott refused her request and announced plans to defund BOPA. When she left, 10 of BOPA’s 13 board members also quit.

Murphy has notably had a smoother tenure, and in the past six months, BOPA has quietly regained many of its former functions.

Her appointment also likely reflects the city’s success in pulling off a well-received 2025 Artscape, staged less than nine months after the previous one — an unusually short turnaround time.

After three years of pandemic shutdowns, the city’s marquee annual celebration returned in 2023, but was hampered by two consecutive years of poor weather, forcing the cancellation of key events.

This year, Artscape was held at a new downtown location over Memorial Day weekend and benefited from beautiful weather. Murphy told the board Wednesday that the two-day festival was attended by “almost 200,000” people.

A handful of other items were also discussed at the board meeting:

BOPA has begun sharing its pricey office space at 7 St. Paul Place with the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. This new city entity, announced in April, has a $2 million budget and is co-led by Linzy Jackson III and Tonya Miller Hall. While sharing the space will help BOPA pay its $16,000 monthly rent, it may also blur the lines between the nonprofit and the city agency.

“Rent here is very expensive,” Murphy said. “Not only has having them here been helpful in that way, but the energy in this office now is strong and fun. I think we’re building a really good working relationship.”

Plans to find an outside vendor to run the city’s weekly farmers markets have been scrapped, Murphy said. Instead, BOPA will continue to oversee the events, which have been a staple of city life for nearly half a century.

Murphy noted that the downtown market, which runs Sunday mornings in the parking lots beneath the Jones Falls Expressway, “is probably the most impactful farmers market in Maryland in terms of being located in a virtual food desert.” She added that it is also the largest food market in the state that accepts SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) vouchers.

The Top of the World observation level in the World Trade Center will remain open to the public through at least Thanksgiving.

The city has rented the space, which provides panoramic views of Baltimore, for decades. But earlier this year, state officials declined to renew the lease after it expired May 31, saying they needed the space.

However, the state later signed a short-term lease extension that runs through November.

“We are uncertain about the future of Top of the World after that,” Murphy said. “More to come.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported the location of the Top of the World observation level. The Sun regrets the error.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

Both sides heralded the agreement, which provides for nearly 14% raises during the three-year contract, eight weeks of paid parental leave and a $750 annual health stipend for part-time staff members — the first time that some workers will get funds from their employer to help cover health expenses.

Sarah Freshnock, a preventive conservator at the Walters and a member of the bargaining committee,  said that the paid parental leave — a benefit the staff has never had before — is especially meaningful to her, since she is getting married in September, and she and her fiance have been discussing starting a family.

“It has been a long process and some people wondered if this contract was ever going to happen,” Freshnock said.

“It is a huge win. We started out really far apart, but people on both sides of the bargaining table worked hard over many months to find a way to come together.”

Kate Burgin, the museum’s Andrea B. and John H. Laporte director and CEO, wrote in a statement that management is committed to a relationship that is “grounded in mutual respect and shared goals in support of our team members.”

She added: “With the [collective bargaining agreement] now ratified, we look forward to moving ahead together with renewed commitment to the museum’s mission to bring art and people together.”

The contract ratification is the most recent example of burgeoning unionization efforts nationwide, which increased dramatically following the coronavirus pandemic-induced job losses and worker protection concerns. Cultural workers locally who have unionized in the past three years include staff members at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Howard County Library System and the Anne Arundel County Public Library.

But at the Walters, unionization efforts proved especially contentious and drawn-out.

“I’m ecstatic that this day has finally come,” Will Murray, who has worked for the Baltimore museum for 27 years and is now its lead maintenance technician, said in a news release. “The Walters is now on par with other progressive institutions who are willing to reward their very deserving employees for their hard work throughout the years with all that this contract entails.”

The long impasse began shortly after staff members who called themselves Walters Workers United announced April 30, 2021, that they planned to organize to address such issues as pay equity, workplace safety and career advancement.

The dispute centered on whether the Walters would have one union or two and which employees would be included in them — issues that took two years, a lawsuit and the introduction of bills into the state legislature to resolve. (The bills were withdrawn once the union election was scheduled.)

Bargaining began shortly after workers voted June 15, 2023, to organize a single union under the auspices of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The contract includes security guards, educators, conservation staff and gift shop employees, among others. Managers, supervisors, confidential employees and members of the leadership team remain outside union jurisdiction.

The workers said  highlights of their new agreement include:

• Guaranteed “step” increases, or automatic raises given based on years of service, in addition to cost-of-living increases. Base minimum salaries, which range from $36,000 to $39,500, jumped to $45,425, retroactively as of July 1. By the time the contract expires, these union members will be paid at least $49,013, according to Linda He, an AFSCME communications director.
• The establishment of two oversight committees to address health, safety and other workplace concerns.
• The health insurance stipend for part-time employees. Stuart Katzenberg, a director of collective bargaining for the union, said that although Walters employees receive health insurance and other benefits from the city, not all of the part-time employees had been eligible for it.

The contract “gives us the power to advocate for the safety protections and respect we deserve,” Garrett Stralnic, the museum’s public programs coordinator, said in the union news release. “Our hard work is what makes the Walters such a vital part of the Baltimore community.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct positions of Kate Burgin, Andrea Laporte and John Laporte. The Sun regrets the errors.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704. Contact Chevall Pryce at cpryce@baltsun.com.

There the mayor and governor were, in Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with their families, cranking their right arms in big circles as if winding up for the pitch, bending their knees and swaying back and forth to the rhythms of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and rap legend Nas.

It was the first time that the BSO had performed with a hip-hop star in the orchestra’s 109-year history. And it is just the most recent example of how Maryland’s largest cultural organization is reaching out to a younger and more diverse population and attempting to grow its audience of the future.

”Man, tonight was incredible,” Scott posted later on his Instagram account, below a photo of himself with his wife, Hana, and her son, Ceron.

”I was just a little older than him when ‘Illmatic’ came out and I remember how life-changing hearing it for the first time was for me.”

Also spotted in the crowd: Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen.

Tickets to the concert sold out 48 hours after the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced April 7 that Nas and the full orchestra would perform his landmark debut album, “Illmatic,” with new arrangements.

“This is perhaps the biggest night in Baltimore in quite a while,” said Allison Burr-Livingstone, the symphony’s senior vice president and chief advancement officer.

“We know that this album means so much to so many people across the country and also here in our community. We hope that we are welcoming longtime fans of Nas who will now be longtime fans of the BSO.”

It would be safe to say that not all of the sold-out 2,443 tickets went to locals.

Nederizio Candelario of Baltimore lured friends from New York to join her at the concert. She has been to the BSO before — she’s a fan of the BSO’s Fusion Series, which intertwines classical melodies with popular music from such bands as Radiohead and songwriter Kendrick Lamar.

”I told them the acoustics [at the Meyerhoff] were very good,” she said.

Symphony officials, who found themselves turning away disappointed ticket-buyers, still aren’t entirely sure what hit them.

“It really was remarkable,” said Mark C. Hanson, the BSO’s president and CEO.

”We had no idea there was such a pent-up demand from people wanting to be in this hall to hear this music. I wish we could have put on five concerts with Nas.”

Fans like Tevin Eubanks and Sharlay Jauvon, of Baltimore, were prepared to splurge. Eubanks said he had hoped to score two of the pricey VIP packages, which included premium seats, a limited edition tour poster and other merchandise.

“The VIP packages sold out fast, and what was left was general admission tickets,” Eubanks said. “I’m glad I was able to get them.”

So Wednesday’s event had all the trappings of a happening, with a pre-performance party in the Meyerhoff lobby that included food trucks, bar service and live music from DJ Impulse.

The concert was divided into three parts: Initially, the Symphony performed a selection of popular tunes from Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife” to John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “New York, New York.”

They were joined for the second part by Nas, who gave the crowd what it was waiting for: “Illmatic,” with new arrangements and backed by an 80-piece orchestra.

Finally, symphony musicians left the stage and Nas performed some of his more recent work.

The BSO won’t have audience demographics from Wednesday’s performance until later this year. But Hanson won’t be surprised if attendees prove to be significantly younger and more racially diverse than typical BSO ticket-buyers. He expects many of the rapper’s fans to be first-time visitors to the Meyerhoff, including those who traveled to Maryland from out of state.

Baltimore‘s Grant Coleman said he had never heard the BSO perform before Wednesday’s concert, though his wife, Tiffany, has; she attended a February 2024 concert that paired the music of rap icons Tupac Shakur (who spent his teen years in Baltimore) and Notorious B.I.G. with Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony.

“This concert is a blending of two different styles and cultures,” Grant Coleman said. “Nas is an awesome performer, and the BSO is an awesome orchestra.”

Symphony officials noted that the experience was eye-opening for people on both sides of the stage. Wednesday’s concert was the first time some of the players had been exposed to Nas’ music, Burr-Livingstone said.

“The opportunity for us to collaborate with an artist as legendary as Nas is huge,” Hanson said.

“It invites new audience members into the Meyerhoff to experience a symphonic concert. And it also broadens our mindset as an organization, leading to other new ideas and ways of collaborating.”

Of course, the 51-year-old Grammy Award-winning Nas isn’t just any rapper, and “Illmatic” isn’t just any album.

The Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised Nas — his original stage name was “Nasty Nas” — is rooted in East Coast hip-hop and famed for his intricate, sophisticated rhymes and storytelling ability. He was named the third greatest rapper of all time in 2015 by Billboard magazine.

“Illmatic” routinely makes Top 10 greatest hip-hop album lists and is included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.

The “Illmatic” tour, which began in 2024 in Europe, celebrates the album’s 30th anniversary.

Though Wednesday was Nas’ first performance with the BSO, it was not his first concert in Baltimore.

In 2019, he performed at the Royal Farms Arena, now CFG Bank Arena, with Mary J. Blige. Five years earlier, he headlined the Preakness Infieldfest in 2014, along with the New Zealand singer/songwriter Lorde.

Though Nas has left Charm City, he will remain in the mid-Atlantic region for at least this weekend. He is scheduled to perform concerts on Friday in Philadelphia and in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

Sun reporters Matthew Schumer and Brendan Townsend contributed to this article.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

In September, the 26-year-old Baltimorean will be a Cafritz Young Artist with Washington National Opera, one of the most competitive programs for emerging opera singers in the U.S.

But it wasn’t always easy being a Black teenage male in the Belair-Edison neighborhood singing music written hundreds of years ago by European men wearing wigs.

“I definitely got pushback,” Henderson said. “I was a social outcast in many ways.”

Nonetheless, he persevered, graduating from Baltimore School for the Arts and Morgan State University, and later earning a master’s degree from England’s Royal Northern College of Music.

Oh, and did we mention that Henderson is also a composer? A song that he co-wrote when he was in his teens was featured in a Netflix television series created by the filmmaker Spike Lee.

”The story that my parents tell is that when my mother was pregnant with me, my father put speakers playing jazz music to my mother’s belly,” Henderson said, “and I came out singing.”

Baltimoreans will have a chance to appreciate Henderson’s talents July 31, when he participates in a free outdoor concert at Mount Vernon Place sponsored by Maryland Opera.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Congratulations on your selection as a Cafritz Young Artist.

Thank you. This is an initiative to help up-and-coming opera singers prepare for international careers. For two years, I will cover [understudy] principal roles in Washington Opera productions and possibly sing small roles. It will put me in an entirely different professional marketplace than I am in now, where I hopefully will be able to earn a living wage.

How did you decide on a career in opera?

I originally wanted to have a career as a pop singer. I didn’t really fall in love with opera until I was 17 and was studying music theory and history. I was listening to Claude Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1, and something kind of clicked. The harmonies brought me so much joy. Classical music remains is still in some ways inaccessible to my generation. I’m going into this career because I want to make opera exciting.

You also still perform popular music.

Singing pop and musical theater is freeing for me. Classical music can be very linear and one-dimensional.  There is a certain way it should be approached. But pop and musical theater [are] still evolving. Just look at “Hamilton.” You can make that music your own.

What is it like to be a Black teenager who sings opera? 

There were people who presented themselves as wanting to help me but said things that were demeaning and disrespectful. Once I was working on a bel canto piece, [music historically performed at royal courts] and a gentleman told me, “It must be hard for you to understand the aristocracy.” Someone else told me, “You ought to consider using Henry instead of Hakeem as your professional name.” It was like running into a brick wall.

What other obstacles have you faced?

When I was 7 years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperacivity disorder] and a mood disorder. When I started at School for the Arts, it was my first time in a structured environment.  I didn’t know a C note from a G, I didn’t know how to organize my time, and I struggled with my attention span. I almost flunked out my freshman year. It was very grueling, and some nights I cried. But my father talked to the school and explained that I was neurodivergent, and they arranged to give me more time to take tests and learn. It made all the difference. Now, some of the people who gave me failing grades have become my colleagues.

What was college like for you?

I was very anxious about what the future would hold for me, and Morgan was not even my first choice. I was rejected from Peabody [Conservatory]. But, it was a very fruitful experience. Many doors opened for me at Morgan that I wasn’t expecting. I sang in the Morgan State Choir under Eric Conway, and when we traveled internationally, I sang a solo.

You had a professional debut that most singers only dream about. Performing at the Edinburgh International Festival is a little like going from school straight to Broadway. How did that happen?

Someone asked Dr. Conway if he had a singer who could perform in “West Side Story” at the festival, and he recommended me. I was in the Jets ensemble, and we performed with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner. I had a ball. Everyone was very generous. It was one of the best times of my life.

You’re also a composer. Wasn’t some of your music featured on the TV series based on Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It”?

When I was 18 or 19, my mother sent me a link that Spike was looking for original music for his television show. I didn’t know who the man was. I had never seen any of his films, but my brother Nazeeh is a writer and a poet, and we often collaborate. We wrote a song about my first love called “I Wish to Hold You Again.”

I didn’t think it was my best work.

But in 2018, I was in the car with my mother and stepfather on the way to a gig and I got a call. He said, “This is Spike. I’m calling to congratulate you. You won.”

Our song was used in episode 8 of that season.

Do you plan on doing more composing in the future?

I also co-wrote a song called “Keep on Movin’ On” with Luis Sullivan, a fellow student at the Royal Northern College of Music, and it subsequently aired on BBC Radio.

At some point, I want to get back to composing. But right now, my schedule singing opera is taking all of my focus and time.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

If you go

Tenor Hakeem Henderson and soprano Nina Evelyn will perform at 7 p.m. July 31 in Mount Vernon Place’s west park with members of the Maryland Opera’s summer camp. Free. For details, go to marylandopera.org.

Exactly how an 1844 oil painting of John Beale Davidge found its way to the former Bertha’s Mussels in Fells Point isn’t entirely clear from the medical school news release last week announcing the discovery.

But the portrait has been donated to the medical school and is already hanging in historic Davidge Hall, the building bearing the name of a founder of the nation’s first public medical school.

Larry Pitrof, executive director of the Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland on Tuesday described the finding as “extraordinary.” He added:

“This is the only portrait of Davidge that we’re aware of that exists. It is certainly the oldest. Until another one shows up, this is our Mona Lisa.”

The painting was discovered May 29 as workers at Bertha’s were preparing the once-iconic Baltimore property for auction. The portrait bears a plaque with Davidge’s name, and the woman who found it, a friend of the medical historian Meg Fairfax Fielding, sent her a text message saying she might want to take a look at it.

Fielding found an oil painting that is roughly 2 feet square. It was in need of a good cleaning, she said, but otherwise was in remarkably good shape given its age and storage conditions.

“This is such a Baltimore story,” said Fielding, director of the History of Maryland Medicine at MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society. “I knew who it was right away.”

Davidge, who died in 1829 at age 61, was a remarkable if flawed human being.

As a young man, his single mother attempted to apprentice him to a cabinetmaker. But Davidge yearned to become a physician — and financed his education by “obtaining aid from friends and coming into possession of some slaves through the death of a relative,” according to mdhistoryonline.net, a website that chronicles the history of medicine in Maryland from 1752 to 1920.

Additional research concluded that at some point in his life, Davidge owned eight enslaved people, according to the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s 1807 Commission on Slavery and Racism.

“We don’t know what happened to his slaves or whether he eventually freed them,” Pitrof said. “We didn’t find evidence in his last will and testament that he owned any slaves at the time of his death.”

The fates of those eight people apparently were never documented. What was recorded for posterity is Davidge’s extraordinary medical career.

Three yellow fever epidemics decimated Baltimore in the late 1700s. One wiped out 10% of the population. Davidge became the 19th-century equivalent of the heroic doctors and nurses who treated patients during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

”No one knew where yellow fever came from,” Pitrof said. “Doctors like everyone else died from yellow fever, and doctors like everyone else fled for the hills. But not John Davidge.

”He had a theory that yellow fever wasn’t contagious, which turned out to be true. The common mosquito was the culprit. He stayed in Baltimore and treated patients with yellow fever and was a calming presence in the city.”

At the time, aspiring physicians learned their craft through a series of apprenticeships. As the founder of Baltimore’s first School of Anatomy, Davidge dissected corpses at his home at Liberty and Saratoga streets — a practice that enraged the populace because of its associations with grave robbing.

During one dissection in 1807, Davidge and his colleagues realized they were being observed.

”An hour later, a mob had formed outside his home,” Pitrof said. “He and his colleagues were lucky to escape with their lives.”

Fielding said the mob burned Davidge’s house to the ground.

”That was what galvanized them to apply to the state legislature for a charter for a medical school,” Pitrof said.

So when Fielding realized whose portrait she was looking at, it never occurred to her to keep it, even though the institution she works for has a large collection of medical portraits.

Since it appears that the oil painting was created about 15 years after Davidge’s death in 1829, it must have been copied from a depiction of the physician made while he was still alive, Fielding said.

What isn’t clear is the artist’s name. An inscription on the rear of the canvas attributes it to a Hungarian portraitist named “A.L.Ratzka” — but that artist wasn’t born until 1869, or long after this portrait was created, Fielding said.

She said that Bertha’s former owner doesn’t remember exactly when or where he acquired the artwork. He told Fielding he suspects he might have bought the portrait at a flea auction.

It hung on a wall in Bertha’s dining room for years, and later in a music studio and eventually in a storage closet. Bertha’s closed in October 2023.

Fielding’s discovery is especially meaningful to the medical school because its only previous portrait of Davidge —a small image in an oval frame — was stolen in the 1990s.

Though Pitrof said the portrait is on view now just inside the Davidge Building’s front door, it will be removed temporarily once renovations begin on the interior of the 1812 building, which the medical school describes as “the oldest medical teaching building in the Western Hemisphere still in use.”

”The painting is stunning,” Pitrof said. “Make no mistake, there will be a prominent location for it once the building reopens.”

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

Once Trump signs the bill, it will effectively remove all federal support for public broadcasting beginning Oct. 1. The CPB will continue to exist on paper, since it was established by federal statute, but it will be an organization with almost no budget.

Congress’ action leaves local stations, particularly smaller outlets in rural areas, scrambling to figure out how to replace money that currently finances such functions as the national Emergency Alert System, regional news and educational programming.

“Without federal funding, many local public radio and television stations will be forced to shut down. Parents will have fewer high quality learning resources available for their children. Millions of Americans will have less trustworthy information about their communities, states, country, and world with which to make decisions about the quality of their lives,” Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of CPB said in a statement. “Cutting federal funding could also put Americans at risk of losing national and local emergency alerts that serve as a lifeline to many Americans in times of severe need.”

In contrast to the media executives who decried the action by Congress, some taxpayer advocates praised the defunding as long overdue.

“This is a great first step, but there needs to be more cuts to the budget down the road,” said David Williams, president of the Washington D.C.-based Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

“The media landscape has changed greatly in the past 10, 15 and 20 years. People have a lot more access to a variety of resources. Taxpayers should not be paying to provide the news whether it comes from the right wing or the left wing. That is the job of the private sector.”

National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting service — each best known by their acronyms of NPR and PBS — will feel the cuts much less than their local affiliates. PBS receives about 15% of its budget from the federal government, while for NPR the financial loss is much smaller, about 1%.

But funding these national broadcasters is just a small part of the CPB’s mission;  70% of its annual budget is allocated to support 1,500 local public radio and television stations nationwide. In 2024, eight Maryland radio and television stations received $6,357,641 from the CPB in direct grants, according to its website.

“We’ll get through,” said Judy Diaz, general manager of Delmarva Public Media, who will forfeit 15% of her budget for three small radio stations on the Eastern Shore, or roughly $300,000 a year. “But losing the CPB is like [being stabbed with] a dagger. We know how important local independent media is to rural markets like ours. We’re too small to attract major donors. But we are here covering what is important to Delmarva because it is our home, too.”

Maryland Public Television President & CEO Steven J. Schupak wrote in an email to The Sun that station leadership is working to identify which cost-cutting measures will be necessary now that the station is losing about $4 million annually in federal funds.

The vote by Congress, Schupak wrote, “will unfortunately require adjustments to our delivery of educational services, reductions in Maryland-focused TV programs, fewer community engagement activities across the state, and possible impacts to our public safety and emergency communications services.”

Mary Stewart, vice president of external affairs at WETA, said that the impact of the funding loss is even greater at producing stations like hers. WETA mounts several popular shows that air nationwide: “PBS NewsHour,” director Ken Burns’ documentary films (including the upcoming six-part series, “The American Revolution”) and the historical documentaries hosted by Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates.

It’s too early to speculate about which cost-cutting measures WETA will implement, Stewart said, but she worries that programming nationwide inevitably will suffer when cash-strapped stations can no longer afford collaborative ventures that are standard today.

“The loss of the CPB will have a substantial impact on us,” Stewart said. “We’re also trying to figure out the ramifications of taking half of a billion dollars out of a system of public television stations that is so interdependent. Collectively, we were able to do so much more together than we will be able to provide on our own.”

Craig Swagler, president and general manager of Baltimore Public Media, cited a recent Harris poll conducted on behalf of NPR which found that two-thirds of Americans support federal funding for public radio, including more than half of Republicans (58%) and three-quarters of Democrats (77%). The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percent.

Baltimore Public Media is the parent company of NPR affiliate stations WYPR and WTMD.

“There is support for what these community-oriented stations do,” Swagler said. “Unfortunately, there was a mandate from the Trump administration and everyone fell in line. The politics of the moment have overruled the demands of the people.”

Though Swagler’s stations will lose $2.5 million in federal money over the next four years, he said that for now his focus is on raising money to offset the loss rather than cutting programming.

“There was no runway,” he said. “The money just got pulled back overnight.”

He is concerned that the demise of the CPB will add costly new responsibilities to local stations such as negotiating broadcasting rights at the same time the outlets are grappling with millions of dollars of revoked federal income. Not all rural broadcasters, he said, will survive that double whammy. And if enough small public media stations cease operations, that could shift the nation’s airwaves politically to the right.

“Some of these organizations will be affected by the cuts right away and could go under,” he said. “It will be a prime opportunity for religious and conservative broadcasters to snap up those licenses — as they are already doing around the country.”

But Jesse Walker, a Baltimore-based author and senior editor for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication, thinks that in the long run, independent stations will benefit from being severed however forcibly from the CPB.

“I’ve been saying for years that there should be a divorce between non-commercial broadcasting and the federal government,” he said.

“Federal subsidies create an opportunity for government officials to stick their snouts into the stations’ business. I also don’t think taxpayers should be forced to fund media outlets they don’t agree with.”

He thinks that radio stations will thrive if they return to their pre-CPB roots of operating on shoestring budgets, being staffed by community volunteers and airing points of view from outside the mainstream.

When government checks disappear, “that doesn’t mean you’re doomed,” Walker wrote Thursday on the Reason Foundation website.

“If you can cover neglected local news, offer technical training to local kids, and give the region’s bands and DJs a place to showcase their talents, you just might stay afloat.”

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

That development was announced by district CEO Sonja Santelises at the July 8 meeting of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners . It meant the commissioners were no longer confronted with a dilemma: Either enroll fewer pupils from the Hunting Ridge neighborhood in which the school is located or turn their backs on a seven-figure government grant.

“Dream Academy, like charter schools for more than two decades, will continue to serve its neighborhood zone,” Santelises told the commissioners. “As a result, a board vote on this issue will no longer be necessary.”

The rule change will allow the educational non-profit operating Dream Academy to keep a promise to local residents, according to Bill Buckner, chairman of Arts for Learning Maryland’s board of directors.

“Our commitment when we started this project was to partner with the community,” he said. “This development guarantees that neighborhood children will have the right and opportunity to attend their neighborhood school.”

Santelises’ announcement came amid a string of dismal financial news for schools nationwide as the Trump administration tries to curb education costs.

As recently as Monday, Maryland joined nearly two dozen other states and Washington, D.C., in suing the Trump administration for withholding $6.8 billion in previously authorized education grants.

The Baltimore school board voted June 10 to convert Thomas Jefferson Elementary/Middle School from a public school to a operator-run charter school with an arts integration focus.

The new charter school is expected to open in the fall of 2026. It will feature classrooms co-led by teachers and teaching artists, according to the website, an approach modeled on successful summer and after-school programs.

“Dream Academy is not just about integrating the arts,” middle school teacher Yvette Freter says on the website. “It’s about transforming how we teach. It gives teachers the time, tools, and training to meet the diverse needs of our students.”

For years, Thomas Jefferson Elementary/Middle has struggled with low enrollment. It currently has 296 pupils, or roughly 60% of the total student population it served just 10  years ago. Just 40% of the students living in the neighborhood school’s catchment area end up enrolling, according to the application for conversion.

That’s a problem for the school because the amount of funding is determined in large part by the size of its student body.

Maryland Arts for Learning said in the application that it hopes to slowly grow the student population to 500 once the transformation to a charter school is complete.

“Essentially, the school as it exists now cannot afford to continue to operate,” said McKenzie Allen, executive director of the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools, which administers the federal grant program for the Old Line State. “It’s a large building with the expenses of a school for 500-plus students, but funding for just 300 students.”

For the 2023-’24 school year, only 9.2% of Thomas Jefferson elementary school students and 7.8% of middle school pupils were rated as proficient on standardized math tests, according to state data, lagging behind the 10.2% of all Baltimore City Public School students who hit the same benchmark.

Results were marginally better for language arts, in which 11.8% of Thomas Jefferson elementary school students and 29% of middle schoolers achieved proficiency, as compared to the 27.7% of all students in City Schools.

Educators hoped that both problems could be solved by turning Thomas Jefferson into a charter school with an arts focus.

“Most people want every school to be high performing and all students to do well,” Buckner said. “We think there is an opportunity with our model to improve academic performance and help students achieve their full potential.”

The nonprofit applied for a federal charter school program grant that provides up to $2 million to either open new charter schools or convert existing traditional schools into these operator-run institutions. But the planners ran afoul of a government stipulation:

“The definition of federal charter schools during President Joe Biden’s administration was that they had to run lotteries and be open to anyone,” Allen said.

Baltimore City currently has 31 charter schools, according to its website, and 23 use a lottery to select which students can enroll. But the city also has eight neighborhood charter schools — former traditional public schools that were transformed into charters but continue to prioritize admitting students living in the surrounding communities.

In Baltimore, those schools are: The Belair-Edison School, City Springs Elementary/Middle School, Frederick Elementary School, Furman L. Templeton Preparatory Academy, Govans Elementary School, Hampstead Hill Academy, Wolfe Street Academy and Pimlico Elementary/Middle School.

The board postponed voting on the issue until July 8, saying commissioners needed more time to evaluate their options. In the interim, Allen asked the U.S. Department of Education’s legal team — newly appointed under the Trump administration — to reconsider the requirement that admission to conversion charter schools be decided solely by lottery.

“They came back really quickly with a new interpretation of the law that said that would allow for neighborhood zoning for a charter school,” Allen said.

Allen said the new legal interpretation could mean that at least one other existing charter schools with neighborhood zoning such as might be eligible for the same federal grant that will benefit Dream Academy. Pimlico Elementary/Middle, which has a health sciences focus, has applied for a $413,000 grant, she said. That application is pending.

But in the meantime, plans are moving ahead to open the city’s newest charter school.

“We’re really excited that we get to work with Arts for Learning and help them build their dream school,” Allen said.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

The Florida-based artist, who incorporates into her creations such found materials as broken plates, soda cans and, yes, buttons, is being featured in a solo show at the American Visionary Art Museum. “The Strength to be Joyful: Messages from Mary Proctor” will open Aug. 2 and run for two years, according to the museum website.

“When I was a child, my grandma would keep all her old buttons in a jar,” reads the text on one of Proctor’s artworks. “She would keep them there to mend our clothes. … Now we all need to be mended like Gram mend them. Old button, mend us all, Lord.”

After reading those words, a viewer steps closer. What at first appears to be a collection of tiny, glittering jewels that make up the garments worn by a dignified adult woman and a tiny girl — as well as the trees that shelter the pair and the ground they stand on — turn out to be the round discs used to fasten clothes.

The exhibition, which will include nearly three dozen of Proctor’s works, is a “landmark” show, according to Ellen Owens, AVAM’s executive director. Not only is it the longest showing of the artist’s work, it also is among the largest. Janes estimated that 200,000 AVAM visitors will see the show before it closes in 2027.

“Pieced together with what others might dismiss as debris,” AVAM curator Gage Branda wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun,  “Mary Proctor’s works don’t whisper. They sing.”

Proctor, 65, told the Souls Grown Deep website that she was born in 1960 to a frightened 11-year-old mother who briefly abandoned her infant by the side of the road. Her beloved grandmother found the newborn in a ditch, scooped her up, and raised Mary as her child.

But Proctor didn’t realize she was an artist until 1995, when a blaze in a house trailer claimed the lives of her grandmother, an aunt and an uncle. Firefighters tried — and failed — to pry open the swelling metal doors that trapped the three.

Later, as Proctor struggled to emerge from a long period of despair, she told AVAM officials that God spoke to her and told her, “Paint onto the doors.”

What followed were a series of brightly hued artworks on doors of varying sizes, from small cabinets to large, double-hung garage doors. Proctor’s doors are covered with hand-lettered messages in black paint and figures (often of Black women) that illustrate her spiritual teachings.

For example, in one painting titled “A Woman Got to Love Herself. If She Don’t Who Will?” a female form is shown in profile in the midst of a delirious dance. In one cupped arm, the woman holds her heart, which is the same shape and shade of scarlet as her mouth and shoes.

Branda said that Proctor “has spent more than 30 years sharing the kind of wisdom that only comes from weathering great adversity. Her message is deceptively simple: Be joyful.  … She reminds us that it takes real strength to be joyful in the face of sadness.”

It didn’t take long for Proctor’s work and message to win both fans and critical appreciation. In the past three decades, her painted doors have been shown in dozens of solo and group exhibitions and are part of the permanent collections of several museums, including AVAM, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Atlanta’s High Museum.

“When I create,” Proctor has said, “I feel like a butterfly.”

If you go

“The Strength to be Joyful: Messages from Mary Proctor” opens Aug. 2 and runs through Aug. 2, 2027, at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Highway. Admission ranges from $9.95 to $15.95, and children 6 and younger are admitted free. For details, go to avam.org or call 410-244-1900.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported Owens’ name. The Sun regrets the error.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

Uri Pearlman, a managing partner for the group, said the new venture at 3335 Worthington Blvd. in Ijamsville will feature an eclectic menu and live music Friday and Saturday nights.

The partners are seeking to expand the lodge concept of restaurants introduced by two Montgomery County establishments: Creek Lodge in Rockville and The Clarks Lodge in Clarksburg.

“Our goal is to offer a welcoming atmosphere where locals can enjoy great food, drinks, and company,” co-owner Sanjeev Gupta said in a Friday news release.

The decor and menus will be similar in all three locations, Pearlman said. For example, there will be a happy hour Mondays through Fridays, weekend brunch and specials such as half-off ribs and Taco Tuesdays. The bar will boast whiskey and craft beer.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.

The list of 90 authors for the 25th annual festival on Sept. 6 in Washington includes Justice Amy Coney Barrett discussing her journey to the U.S. Supreme Court; National Book Award winning novelists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Columbia resident and Susan Choi, a Johns Hopkins University professor; and the wildly popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine, who created the “Goosebumps” series.

While the announced lineup isn’t out of the ordinary, libraries nationwide including the Library of Congress, which mounts the festival, have made headlines repeatedly over the past few months as President Donald Trump attempts to redraw America’s cultural landscape.

The free, daylong event was founded in 2001 by former first lady Laura Bush and drew an annual audience of about 200,000 book lovers before the pandemic, according to the Library website.

“For 25 years, the National Book Festival has gathered lovers of reading and the authors who inspire them for a day of conversation and discovery,” says a festival news release. “The special National Book Festival experience, defined by the depth and breadth of storytelling, has grown to become one of the nation’s favorite literary traditions.”

Other festival headliners include:

• The Pulitzer prize winning-biographer Ron Chernow, whose biography of founding father Alexander Hamilton became the groundbreaking Broadway musical “Hamilton”.
• Scott Turow, author of 13 blockbuster legal thrillers, including “Presumed Innocent.”
• U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, the first Latina appointed to that prestigious role. She will be joined by the two most recent poet laureates: Joy Harjo, the nation’s first Native American poet laureate, and Tracy K. Smith.
• Jill Lepore, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and a history professor at Harvard University.
• The two-time Academy Award-winning actor and new picture book author Geena Davis.

In addition to author appearances, the book festival also includes storytelling sessions, workshops, a STEM district intended to develop kids’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math, and a Roadmap to Reading that takes audience members on a literary journey to all 50 states.

While the event blueprint has remained unchanged for much of its recent history, it will take place in a political landscape that has been significantly altered and which has implications for the way the festival will be viewed.

For example, the book festival is co-chaired by Baltimore Orioles owner David M. Rubenstein, who the president removed in February as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

In addition, the Library of Congress leadership remains up in the air. In May, Trump fired chief librarian Carla Hayden, and attempted to install his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, in her place. Leaders of both parties objected and Blanche was escorted out of the building.

The institution is being led in the interim by Hayden’s former second-in-command, Robert Newlin.

Hayden, a Baltimorean and the first Black Librarian of Congress, announced earlier this week that she is joining the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

And finally, Barrett’s appearance may draw visitors who will attempt to find clues as to how the Supreme Court might rule in the coming months on a slew of high-profile lawsuits seeking to block various Trump initiatives, from birthright citizenship to tariffs.

If you go

The National Book Festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 6 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Allen Y. Lew Place NW, Washington. Free. For details, visit loc.gov/events/2025-national-book-festival/

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.