Arts in Seattle - After The Fair

After The Fair

To retire the US$35,000 debt from the Symphony's production of Aida, Seattle arts patrons founded PONCHO. The resulting gala auction was such a success that it also provided $50,000 to help establish the Seattle Opera, and $16,000 to other organizations. PONCHO would go on to raise over $33 million for the arts over the next several decades.

Robert Nesbitt writes in the liner notes to the compilation album Wheedle's Groove that in 1972 the city had "a minimum of twenty live music clubs specializing in funk and soul," and that doesn't count other popular music genres. That collection of live music clubs would shrink drastically beginning in the mid-1970s, first with the rise of disco music and recorded dance music in general, and then with Seattle's slightly rundown center becoming a financial district of new skyscrapers.

Writing in 1972, Nard Jones remarked on the Seattle telephone directory having "three solid columns" of art galleries and dealers, representing "an astonishing variety". Of these he singled out the Richard White Gallery (which in 1973 became Foster/White) and the avant-garde Manolides Gallery (now defunct) and the Woodside Gallery (later Gordon Woodside / John Braseth Gallery) in the Broadway district of Capitol Hill.