As certain a sign of summer as the first mosquito, the Alaska Native Heritage Center opens their 10th year in business today with Mother's Day festivities. Traditional Native dancers and game demonstrations, an art market (for those last-minute gifts; how could you have forgotten?), music by Medicine Dream, films and the unveiling of the center's new Statehood Exhibit will be among the attractions and activities. Best of all, admission is "free to the public" thanks to Target, according to the press release. Summer hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

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Young hands tackle Beethoven, Debussy

The lover of ambitious piano playing found much to admire in Sunday's recital by the winners of the Alaska Piano Competition -- formerly the Marguerite Downey Competition. Ian Huh, who took the top prize and $300 in the Senior Young Artists Division, played Beethoven's gnarly Sonata Op. 111. Debussy pieces performed by Jasper Jackson, Alex Yang and Annie Kil also impressed me, as did Intermediate I Division winner Jessen Cao's "L'Orage" by Burgmuller.

It would be nice, I thought, if these polished school-age performers could play for their contemporaries at school events, kind of a mini in-district concert season.

It would be inspiring and cheap -- presuming that either of those attributes fit into the objectives of present-day education professionals.

The full list of winners is posted at adn.com/artsnob, along with Saturday's winners in the ASAA 2009 State Solo and Ensemble Music Festival. More comes at 7 p.m. Saturday, when the Anchorage Concert Chorus's 19th Annual Winners' Recital takes place in the UAA Fine Arts Building recital hall.

Book closing on writers' conference

Sitka's public radio station KCAW has reported that the 25th annual Sitka Symposium of authors and "thinkers" in June will be the last.

Attending the 1991 conference, Daily News Arts editor Thomas Harrison described the event as "Part writers' conference and part thinkers' conclave ... a 'jam session for ideas.' "

Conducted on the campus of Sitka's Sheldon Jackson College -- which also called it quits this year -- the symposium presented panels and talks by a multi-disciplinary mix of philosophers, poets, essayists, filmmakers, educators, scientists and others.

Topics focused on cultural, literary and political concerns.

"To the uninitiated, the week-long symposium might have seemed an exercise in the abstruse agile minds seeking deeper meanings and neglecting real-life, quotidian concerns," Harrison wrote.

"And yet the issues before the faculty and participants were real: humans and their relationship to the environment; the writer's role as craftsman or political spokesman; the acceptance (or avoidance) of moral responsibility in the face of tragedy."

The symposium is sponsored by the nonprofit Island Institute.

Carolyn Servid and her husband Dorik Mechau, co-directors of the Island Institute, have indicated that they will continue to run the institute's Writer in Residence and other programs.

First Friday Rambles

(From adn.com/artsnob)

There are two marvelous things to see at Out North right now.

The first is a gut-clenching performance of "The Man in the Attic," a play with all the power (and optimism) of "The Ice Man Cometh" -- only half as long.

The other is the show of Roman Rubio's paintings in the Out North Gallery. Bright and allusion-filled, they give a nod to Picasso both with the oft-repeated motif of disembodied eyes and the oft-repeated references to music.

Rubio sometimes floats words -- usually the title of the painting -- into the image.

He also had some 3-D pieces on display, but they didn't impress me as much as the flat paintings.

(By the way, don't trust the photos on the blog; they do minimum justice to the real items.)

Arts awards announced

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the following grants to Alaska arts groups:

• Alaska Arts Southeast, Inc., $50,000

• Alaska Junior Theater, Inc., $10,000

• Alaska State Council on the Arts, $729,200

• Sitka Summer Music Festival Inc., $10,000

• VSA Arts of Alaska, $10,000

Two of the groups, Alaska Junior Theatre and Alaska Arts Southeast, which operates the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, address young people in the arts.

The grant to Anchorage-based VSA will be used to support the development of a trilogy of plays titled "Exploring Migration in Alaska" by Hmong May Lee Yan and Yup'ik Emily Johnson. The plays are intended to tour rural Alaska communities.

Council is looking for award winners

The Alaska State Council on the Arts is taking nominations for the 2009 Governor's Awards for the Arts in the following categories:

• Arts advocacy

• Individual Artist

• Business Leadership

• Margaret Nick Cooke Award for Native Arts and Languages

Eligibility is open to any individual, organization or institution that has made a significant contribution to the arts in Alaska is eligible, with the exception of current ASCA Council members, staff or prior Award recipients. Deadline for nominations is June 1, 2009.

Nomination forms are available on the Council's Web site, at www.eed.state.ak.us/aksca. For more information, contact the Alaska State Council on the Arts at 269-6610 or toll-free statewide, 888-278-7424.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

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