With the opening of the annual Artworks tomorrow , the CAC marks five decades of providing arts events and education.
The festival of children’s art will begin at 6 p.m. with a celebratory cutting of a birthday cake, marking the CAC’s rich history of arts education and programming.
The first fledging event – an arts festival at the City Federation of Women’s Clubs – was three days of varied programs, exhibits and performances. Now, the Saulsbury, McCreary, Howard and Carabasi galleries will be chockablock full of children’s paintings, sculptures, multi-media, collages, pottery – and plenty more. The works could number 3,000 from nearly two dozen schools, said Marilyn Ritchey, the CAC’s visual arts director and curator. Among the honored guests will be co-founder Raye Virginia Allen, and the families of Nora Lee Wendland, co-founder, and Azalee Marshall, the center’s namesake.
The Temple High School Orchestra, directed by James Flowers, will perform. THS’s Big Blue D.R.E.A.M.S Catering will provide the cake.
What a difference a half century makes.
Highlight of the first festival was a duo-piano concert by Dr. and Mrs. Louis Galanffy, both respected musicians and teachers who had recently moved to Central Texas to teach at Mary Hardin-Baylor College. Louis Galanffy had been a protégé of composer Bela Bartok in his native Hungary; his wife was also a respected concert artist.
The Galanffys had been among the 2000,000 refugees who had fled during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Soviet Union. They had been brought to Temple and Belton at the prompting of Nora Lee Wendland, the CAC’s co-founder, and her husband, Robert, who helped them get faculty posts. Galanffy had been five years away from retirement as professor of the State Music Conservatory and supervisor of all state music schools in northern Hungary. He was ousted because of his support of the revolution and were granted U.S. asylum with just a couple of suitcases. When Mrs. Wendland found them, Galanffy was working as a church custodian in New York City.
Mrs. Galanffy borrowed an evening gown from Mrs. Wendland, and Galanffy wore his wedding suit. The night of the Galanffy’s first performance, 800 persons packed into the City Federation Clubhouse to hear their concert.
That beginning was auspicious. “People came out of the bushes to hear good music, see art and watch plays,” Mrs. Allen said.
