Arts Council’s AxS Gold Crown Awards Ceremony Sees Departure of Executive Director Terry LeMoncheck

The Pasadena Arts Council’s 2015 AxS Gold Crown Awards ceremony on Tuesday was the last official event on the last official day of Executive Director Terry LeMoncheck’s 13-year term of leadership for that important organization.

The Council’s Board of Trustees named Robert Crouch as Interim Executive Director. LeMoncheck has retired and is moving to Northern California. Her introduction to the Council came after she accepted an invitation to the 2002 Gold Crown awards.

“How fitting that my last day with the Pasadena Arts Council is the event that brought me here in the first place – this very special occasion that honors the people and organizations who make Pasadena this very special place,” LeMoncheck wrote in the program.

Honored that night at the Huntington Library were philanthropist Anne F. Rothenberg, the Studio at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and four outstanding local arts students.

Anne Rothenberg was recognized as the 2015 Gold Crown Honoree.

For years, she and husband James have been supporting the Council’s many programs for the promotion of arts and culture in Pasadena. Anne herself has been president of the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts and is currently a trustee of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

The Studio at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, meanwhile, received the 2015 AxS Award for creativity in interpreting art and science. The AxS award, according to the Arts Council, celebrates the “allied importance of both the arts and the sciences to the dynamic tenor of our time and commemorates, in Pasadena, a textured conversation between the sciences and the arts that has long been emblematic of the city’s history and is equally fused with its future.”

The Arts Council also recognized emerging talent in the fields of visual art, music, theatre and dance, honoring four lucky Young Artist Awards winners from area high schools with an unrestricted gift of $1,000.

The 2015 Young Artists were Elise Holmes for Dance, Esther Langer for Music, Camille Arboles for Theater and Dalon Poole for Visual Art.

The Council’s partners in this program were the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena Conservatory of Music, Pasadena Dance Theater, and Theatre 360.