State of the Arts Launches its Twenty-fifth Season on NJN

— Arts magazine recently earned its twenty-fifth Emmy Award —

STATEWIDE – NJN’s State of the Arts begins its fall season on October 20 with new episodes and a repeat performance of an Emmy Award-winning program. The half-hour arts magazine will air every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by a rebroadcast each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.

NJN gives viewers of State of the Arts the opportunity to begin their weekends with a first-run and first-rate, in-depth focus on the arts. In its twenty-five years on NJN, the show has earned 25 Regional Emmy Awards, including a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy and a 2004 New York Emmy.

Many of this season’s programs highlight fascinating places, cultural performances and artworks to tour or visit. Armchair travelers may be entertained in the comfort of their homes, while others will be offered insights into some of New Jersey’s most interesting cultural locations before they venture out and see these for themselves.

The season opens on October 20 (rebroadcast on October 25) with The Healing Arts, a poignant look at the liberating, even cathartic effect that music, dance, and the visual arts have on human nature. State of the Arts visits the Matheny School in Peapack where Mark and Melissa Roxey of the Lambertville-based Roxey Ballet explore the art of dance despite the students’ disabilities, and also looks at the value of music therapy at Morristown Memorial Hospital. The program also brings the viewer to the State Museum in Trenton to see designs and models for “Empty Sky – The New Jersey September 11, 2001 Memorial,” as well as other monuments to 9/11 that have sprung up throughout the state.

On October 27 and November 1, State of the Arts presents an encore performance of Foreign Affairs. The show includes an exclusive profile of Neeme Järvi, the globetrotting conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra; and a look at the “Gentle Bonaparte,” Napoleon’s older brother Joseph, whose estate in Bordentown, New Jersey was a cultural mecca for 18th century America. Featured in the story is

an interview with Patricia Tyson Stroud, the author of “The Man Who Had Been King: The American Exile of Napoleon’s Brother Joseph,” which is the recipient of the 2006 New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award.

The new season continues with an encore performance of the Emmy-winning Tools of the Trade on November 3 with a rebroadcast on November 8. On September 9, 2006, the program garnered Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards in the category of Magazine Program for its producer Eric Shultz and associate producer Christopher Benincasa. The program examines how “tools of the trade” — from pencils to pianos — are an essential part of the creative process. Viewers hear a piano from Mozart’s time, see marionettes in action, learn how art can be made from words, and visit a Jersey City factory that makes pencils.

November concludes with the premiere presentation of Old is New on November 17 with a rebroadcast on November 22. This episode of State of the Arts deals with how the past is reinvented. The established town of Collingswood finds a new engine of economic revitalization in the arts; the classic 1976 documentary, “Grey Gardens,” is transformed into a new Broadway musical; historic old barns of New Jersey are preserved and sometimes transformed into homes; and classic American comics from the early 20th century continue to influence comic book artists of today.

The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view online following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.

Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.