(bright music) - [Announcer] "Art Elevated: The Governor's Mansion Artist Awards" is made possible in part by Big-D Construction, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Foundation, the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, Zions Bank, and the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Governor's Mansion.

As you all know, Utah loves art.

(bright music) Art transcends verbal language.

It is understood by all, it truly unites.

Continuing our great tradition of honoring and supporting artists, we are pleased to present some amazing artists this evening.

(bright music continues) - Ben Steele received a painting and drawing degree from the University of Utah in 2002, but it was his additional training at the Helper Art Workshops that cemented his resolve to pursue art full time.

Ben's work is clever, often humorous, and technically rigorous.

His unique artistic style is contributing to Utah's visual arts landscape in ways we are proud to see.

Helper is still home to Ben, his wife Melanie, and their three sons.

- We moved here because I was at the University of Utah.

I learned that I should come to Helper and study with Dave Dornan, who had just retired the year before I got there, kind of this idea that you come to Helper, there's little distractions here, and that's actually good.

You're left to you and your studio and making art.

- Ben came here after he graduated and took five workshops.

One of his strengths was if I made a suggestion, he didn't say, "Well I'm, you can't do, I'm not gonna, I'm an independent artist."

Ben was one of those people that just, he did everything that I suggested, and then he found his own voice.

- Dave suggested when we moved down here to paint things you like.

One of them was a crayon.

I painted a couple crayons, and it was like, well, I love art history.

What if I did a history theme?

And of course, the first one has to be a "Mona Lisa" crayon page.

One of the next ones I did was a Picasso, and it was fun.

And then I just realized I didn't have to do crayons.

Why couldn't I sample art history in a different way?

I remember being at Walmart checking out, and there was a thing of Pez dispensers, and I thought it'd be kind of cool to take a Rembrandt self-portrait and just paint his, you know, his head on the Pez.

And so it just kept snowballing till you're off over here in, you know, a Utah history lesson here with Salvador Dali.

- One thing I really like about Ben is the joy that he finds in everyday things, everything that he thinks of and looks at.

His energy is extraordinary, it's positive, and it's funny.

(bright music continues) - He's found a way in his work to make a comment on the art world, both humorous, satirical, and he knows that he can open a door that might not be able to be opened by putting something in, an image in there that everyone knows.

- What we refer to as Mormon Rockwell, or it's officially called "The Tabooist," that is a spoof off a Norman Rockwell painting where there's a sailor getting what looks like maybe his new girlfriend's name added, and there's crossed out like five or six of the previous ones.

I saw that and thought Brigham Young and all the wives, and that we could make a little joke on this, like getting your wives tattooed on your arm.

The background has all these different, looks like tattoo designs with all the different kind of Utah cultural symbols.

(playful music) It's celebrating Utah culture and its history, and for me, it's just fun.

- Ben is very, very knowledgeable, and is academically trained, so his pieces are sort of a collage, but he always knows about where the light source is, he knows about perspective, and on top of that, he knows the art history.

- So I did a print off of the original painting, "The Persistence of Memory."

I'll then start making notes about what could replace, you know, things in it.

Some of the stuff I know I'll want, and a lot of it I just kind of make up as I go.

You have a plan, and then you start responding, and get rid of the white space as fast as you can.

(drill whirring) - [Anne] He has created a team, and within that, he is able to produce enough art to keep this whole organization going.

- Melanie and I, my wife and I, we brainstorm everything together.

My spot's right here, and she's right behind me.

She doesn't have to turn around.

She can just look up and engage.

I can get a critique on what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it.

(bright music) In downtown Helper, we have a store somewhere between candy shop, gift shop, to gallery.

We want it to have this range, and be welcoming.

Right on time.

The work that I'm creating is something that the subject matter is accessible, and we wanted a store that made people to feel welcome of all ages, and if you wanna spend anywhere from a dollar, pretty much a dollar going up, you can find a note card, T-shirt.

You don't have to spend a lot of money.

The art isn't just about large money, it's about sharing ideas and having something that everybody can engage with.

- I have a couple T-shirts.

One of 'em is a hamburger, and it says Helper, Utah, and it just made me laugh.

(bright music continues) - Ben is recognized nationally, but it doesn't really matter to him.

What's consequential is that he loves his work, he loves his family, he's living the dream, and in 100 years from now, people will know of him.

- People know Ben way more than they know me now.

I go, "Hey Ben, step aside, Ben here, I'm going to."

(laughing) (bright music continues) But I care about Ben deeply, and I know of no artist that takes himself more seriously and less seriously than Ben, and that is a perfect range.

- Obviously, getting this was a huge surprise, and as part of it, we're asked to kinda give a little talk, so accordingly, I had to do it the way that I would do it.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) I always wake up excited to go to the studio.

Getting to make this painting, getting to play with Utah, its history, that's what's fun, and I get to do it with my best friend every day.

- I love working on the Governor's Mansion Artist Award committee.

It's a chance for the governor and first lady to spotlight and honor the careers and impact that artists make here locally in our state, that enrich our culture and enrich our lives.

(indistinct chatter) - Our next awardee is Joel Rosenberg.

Joel is the music director of the American West Symphony, the Paradigm Chamber Orchestra, and a long time collaborator with the University of Utah's piano and opera departments.

(Joel playing pleasant viola music) Joel has traveled throughout the world conducting some of the world's finest orchestras.

His viola career is just as accomplished.

- I was a concert master of the Utah Youth Symphony and my high school orchestra, but I then went to college, and then later, Julliard.

(Joel playing pleasant viola music) I studied in Rome, and then I came back here, and I conducted concerts here.

(orchestra playing lively music) I think as a conductor, you are responsible for the happiness of the people who play under you.

You want to choose music they like, you want to help them improve, and it's the process of putting things together.

You gotta start with how fast are you gonna play?

If you're conducting an opera, your tempo changes every page, and you have to make the decision about are the notes short, are they long, how loud, how soft?

You know, as Leonard Bernstein said in his book, "It's the infinite variety of music."

(orchestra playing dramatic music) - Joel has been the conductor of the American West Symphony for 30 years, puts on a concert at a church in Sandy so that he exposes the people of the South Valley to classical music.

Then he gives a second concert at Libby Gardner Hall.

- Over the years, Joel's performances have been used to raise money for many community charities.

In addition, his partnership with the University of Utah has given the unique opportunity for piano and opera students to perform music with a full orchestra.

(students singing bright opera) - What's normal for a college sophomore or freshman is to spend probably four years studying singing with mainly piano.

(opera singing continues) A piano can be very musical, but it does not sustain the way a string does.

So when you're singing with a string or a french horn that's holding a languid note, it's essentially a completely different experience.

- That has enabled young singers to perform big works.

Over 500 young singers have had chances to participate in about 18 or so operas.

A lot of students got their start here with Joel.

It's very hard to describe how happy it makes me when we get to do these shows.

It's been a joy.

(audience applauding) He's very modest, and he always likes to put the spotlight on the performers more so than himself.

(audience applauding) (Joel playing sad viola music) - [Joel] Well, the arts are our tree of life.

It gives us energy, it gives us inspiration, it gives us imagination, and all of those things can grow and grow and grow.

- Joel is passionate about his music.

He studies it thoroughly, he knows it.

He loves the music, he loves the performance.

He loves teaching, this is what he does, and this is what people love him for.

This is his life's work.

(Joel playing pleasant viola music) - [Joel] The music fills me with energy.

I like it more and more all the time.

I love it more and more all the time.

(pleasant viola music continues) - One of my favorite artists, Jeff Hein.

He specializes in portraits, multi-figure paintings, and large scale still life works.

When you look at a Jeff Hein painting, it's not just the accuracy of detail that stands out, but the emotional presence and depth of character present in all of his subjects.

His work is included in notable fine art collections in Utah and throughout the country.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating Jeff Hein.

(audience applauding) - I've tinkered with everything, I've done still life, I've done landscape, but ever since I discovered painting the portrait, I've been addicted to the portrait.

When you paint a face and it starts to look like a face, it's almost like you're making life.

It's like it's, eventually it just stares back at you, and it's kind of magical.

(bright music) - Jeff Hein is just a fabulous artist.

He's well known for his portraits, but what's interesting about Jeff is that Jeff goes through this extensive process to understand the personalities of each person he's painting.

He also will interview each family member about the other so that he can identify humorous features and incorporate them into the paintings.

- One of my favorite family portraits, so a mother and her two sons, they're teenagers.

She was very involved in the community, she had lots of responsibilities, she wasn't the type to be home making sandwiches for kids, and so I thought it would be kind of funny to have her making a sandwich.

Her boys were just sitting there, and they're kind of like looking back at us like this, and their boxers are hanging out their pants, so it's this really boyish boys with this really sophisticated mother making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and it was just fun.

All of my clients are good sports about this stuff, but I'm often not making fun of them, but finding humor in their lifestyles.

You know, we all are kind of humorous.

This family in Nashville came up here to have their portrait done.

Daughter's nickname was Squirrel 'cause she was spacey, so I put a little squirrel on the ground getting into their mother's purse, and the mother was trying to talk to the daughter, and the daughter was just like totally spacing.

I just recently did one where there's one daughter, her parents described her as being like she felt she was in charge, so I had her standing in front of all of her siblings, and everyone's just looking around her like, okay.

- [Jonathan] Jeff likes to incorporate those relationships, the family dynamics.

There might be someone that's more mischievous, or a personal passion of another that is somehow incorporated in the painting.

He's very clever that way.

- I don't do that many still lifes, but the two still lifes I did, I think the reason I did them was because they were required in order to illustrate what I was feeling at the time.

I had a friend who had cancer, but I also had little kids at home, and we had this couch that was covered in baby spit.

So I went out and I bought a new couch, and then I was riddled with guilt because I've got this friend up the street who could have used that $2,000 that I spent on the couch.

I started thinking a lot about what my responsibility is as a member of society, as a Christian, as a human.

I painted the painting "Convenient Charity," and it's a scene where there is a nice meal, one chair is pulled out as though the person eating is inviting someone to eat with them, but there's no place setting, but there's all this Walmart food on the floor, and so the point is, I am inviting my friend to have of all the things I don't care about.

We're told that artists just express themselves, and it's all about me, me, me, like how do I feel today, what's inspiring me?

And you can get wrapped up in that stuff.

And so that's one, why family portraits are important to me, 'cause family's important to me, but also religion, God is important to me, my faith's important to me.

- Jeff is highly motivated by his family and his own faith.

He is taking on multi-year projects, which to anyone would seem really intimidating.

- I don't know of very many if any really large-scale, ambitious life of Christ painting series that have been done since the Renaissance.

Carl Bloch did one, but even his was sort of like smaller scale.

There's been a few others, but not in the recent history, and I want to try my hand at it.

For the next 10 or 15 years, I'll be doing the entire life of Christ for a public collection, and there's even a couple donors here who already helped, and so I'm honored to be able to have that opportunity.

To say everything you can say in a single picture, you'd have to write volumes, and so if I can do a painting really, really well about something that really, really matters, it's just a powerful thing.

(Dr. Yang playing light piano music) - In 2020, Dr. Yu-Jane Yang was selected as the sole teacher of the year by the Music Teachers National Association.

Her piano students have gone on to receive top prizes in state, national, and international piano competitions, (Dr. Yang accompanying a violinist) and have received piano scholarships for graduate studies from world renowned music schools.

We are so pleased that she's here tonight to accept this award.

(audience applauding) - My life has been full of quite a few totally unexpected surprises.

When I received an email telling me that I have been selected by the governor and the first lady to receive this year's Utah Governor's Mention Artist Award, the first thought that came to my mind was, could this be a scam?

(audience laughing) (Dr. Yang playing lively piano music) According to my mother, when she took me to the movie "Sound of Music," I went home, memorized those tunes, and tried to play on my toy piano, and then I went to kindergarten, and then I asked to borrow the piano from my kindergarten teacher.

So then the teacher eventually told my mom, "You'd better get this child some piano lessons."

But I did not start teaching piano until I was in college, and I started to really get interested in it.

- Yu-Jane's passion for piano instruction started early in her career.

As a college student, she noticed it was difficult to find instructional material for her students, so Yu-Jane created her own.

All this work would lead to a study of piano pedagogy in the United States, and a teaching position at Weber State University (Dr. Yang playing soft piano music) - At the very beginning, I remember my surprise when I came here, and I told my students, "If you would want to be really good, you have to at least practice two hours a day," and they said, "Two hours a day?"

It took a long time, but I think, you know, sometimes you can say that, oh, there's nothing here, but sometimes you can say that there's everything that I can do here.

- It was such a departure from what I had done in the past, from any way I'd ever learned to play the piano.

I remember specifically one time, she could just tell I had had a week, it was a horrible week, and I remember she took me, she said, "Have you eaten breakfast?"

And I said, "No, I haven't eaten yet."

And so she took me to the Union Building and she bought me breakfast, and that's what we did for my lesson.

- A turning point for the piano program happened in 2005. after meeting a talented young piano student in China named Miranda, Yu-Jane wanted to bring her to Weber State to study.

In just a few days, Yu-Jane raised $10,000 from community supporters for the school's first international performing arts student scholarship.

(Miranda playing intense piano music) - She started to help attract all the other students that come to Weber State, and they feel like this is a wonderful environment.

(student playing dramatic piano music) - Yu-Jane's piano program at Weber, it makes us competitive with excellence anywhere internationally.

I mean, her students don't just compete in competitions, they win competitions.

- When I get them up to that very high level, I firmly believe they have to have their own personality in there.

So I don't believe that I should create like a factory of pianists, they all play very well, but they all sound the same.

No, I would so much like every one of them shine through their personality.

(dramatic piano playing continues) - This section sounds really amazing.

- [Student] Yeah.

- Because of the way that you listen.

I think one thing that motivates my students the most is that from their lessons, from their practice, they discover they can make incredible music.

One of my really good students went to the state competition.

After she came out from her performance, the chair of the competition was supposed to give her back her music, and she saw the tears coming down from the person's face, and she told me that was the most incredible moment of her life.

She did not know that her playing would have that kind of power on somebody.

Once they experienced that moment, they started to feel that that's their obligation.

- The thing that I love about her impact on her students is that it's a complete defining and growing of the artist.

Many of her students who have gone on, come back to Yu-Jane for refresher courses, to rejuvenate themselves, to have her look at the repertoire.

I mean, no matter where they go out in the world, they come back to Yu-Jane because she's that good, and they have that much respect for her.

- I don't think locally people realize what a gift this program and what a gift Yu-Jane is.

But if you go outside of Utah, everybody knows who she is, and she's deeply respected.

It reaches so far beyond just being able to play the piano.

She told me once that her job is to help her students reach their dreams, and she 100% does that.

- It has truly been a great privilege to be able to guide these remarkable young people.

I'd never really think the kind of influence would be possible, but it is.

- Our next awardee is Marshall McDonald.

Marshall majored in music at the University of Utah where he met his good friend, Steven Sharp Nelson.

They instantly hit it off and began to perform, arrange, and compose multiple albums and symphonies.

(musicians playing emotional orchestral music) Marshall has also collaborated with The Piano Guys, arranging their hit song, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

Marshall has played music for Utah's best musical theaters.

He has given a wonderful gift to Utah through his musical work.

We are honored he is here tonight to receive our award.

(emotional orchestral music continues) - I've found in my career that it's not so much about the finished product, but it's about the process.

There's nothing that makes me more happier than when you're in the process of creation, whatever you do, but when you're creating something, it brings you joy.

(emotional orchestral music continues) Sometimes I'll just look at a piece of music or an arrangement or something that I'm trying to compose, and think, what do I want someone to feel?

What do I want them to experience when they listen to this?

And when you ask yourself those questions, it's amazing the inspiration that can come.

- Marshall has an intuition for music that helps people to feel something, and puts them in a state of mind where they're introspective, and you feel the worth of your own soul.

(emotional orchestral music continues) His focus is not on the notes, and not even on the performer either.

It's really on the potential that music has to heal.

(emotional orchestral music continues) - Okay, we're gonna play the first thing we ever composed together.

Before symphonies, before Piano Guys, before the things, we arranged something together as college students.

- I think I was six and you were 14.

(audience laughing) - You know, maybe just in terms of our, you know, developmental state.

(Steven laughing) - Well said, well said.

(laughs) (Marshall playing bright piano music) - I actually got a letter once from a little girl who said, "I love your music."

But then she traced her hand on the letter and said, "My hand is this big.

I can't play a lot of your songs.

Can you write music that fits my hand?"

And I remember being so touched by that, and thinking she is so right.

One of my niches, you might say, as a musician, is to write music that's simple enough for anyone to play and be successful with.

- Marshall's music has never been about him.

It's always been about someone ingesting it in a way that is edifying, but also lifts them to another level where they can live higher.

- I always tell my children we don't learn instruments so that we can just become good at it.

We learn a skill so that we can use the skill to help others.

And music has a great power, as does art, in connecting and healing.

That's why I like to do what I do.

You know, I think there's a lot of labels that we can put ourselves in.

I'm a father and I'm a husband.

There's nothing that brings me greater joy than being married to Kristien and seeing my children succeed.

I'm a religious educator, I love to teach.

I love directing choirs, and I love my students.

I love using music in a way that can teach others and give them hope in their life.

I think one of the reasons Utah is so strong is because of the incredible heritage of the arts that we have here in our community, so it's an honor to be recognized, it's an honor to be here.

Thank you so very much.

(audience applauding) - There was a moment tonight, and I know you all felt it, when we were listening to these artists perform, we all forgot the hard things that we've been dealing with.

This music, this art, is that language that unifies, that language that elevates.

I am so grateful for the artists who share their gifts with all of us.

(bright music) - [Announcer] "Art Elevated: The Governor's Mansion Artist Awards" is made possible in part by Big-D Construction, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Foundation, the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, Zions Bank, and the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.