SEATTLE—The Wallace Foundation has awarded a total of $7.7 million in grants to Seattle arts groups in hopes of expanding the audiences and visibility of visual- and performing-arts groups in the city, the Seattle Times reports. 

The foundation, a New York based arts and culture philanthropy, distributed $500–750,000 grants to nine local groups as part of the Wallace Excellence Awards. Many of the grant recipients will use the money, allotted over a four year period, to specifically target children and young adults who otherwise have had little access to the arts. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, one of the groups that has received a grant, will use the money to expose city public school children to classical music. Dan Petersen, the orchestra's executive director, said, "We're expanding our partnership with the Seattle Public Schools...The goal is to work with 6,000 to 10,000 new students, through performances and participatory programs, over the next four years."

Other Seattle grantees include On the Boards, a center for contemporary performance, which will use its grant to make international dance and theater programs available via its Web site, and the Seattle Opera, which will use the money to make opera more accessible for young patrons. These audience development and outreach programs will be supplemented by the Washington State Arts Commission, which received $1.6 million from the Wallace Foundation to "coordinate a skill-development series of workshops and forums for leaders of arts organizations."

The other recipients of the Excellence Award grants are the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, One Reel, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Art Museum, SIFF (formerly Cinema Seattle), and Seattle Repertory Theatre.