By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Musician and songwriter Zak Dylan says his Rasmuson Foundation award announced last week will help him take his recording and performing career to the next step – and maybe encourage others in the same way.
“Since I started recording music at age 16 with a four-track tape recorder I’ve dreamed of building my own space where I make things and help others to do so as well,” said Dylan. His full name is Zak Dylan Wass, but he goes by Zak Dylan in his performance and recording career.
Zak Dylan. (Photo provided by the Rasmuson Foundation)
Dylan is one of 25 artists or artist groups selected for a $7,500 project award, in the Rasmuson Foundation’s 2022 Individual Artist Awards. (Another Sitkan received a fellowship in the latest round of Rasmuson grants. See story, this page.)
Dylan, 37, was raised in a fishing family, and has lived in Sitka on and off since age 2. He graduated from high school on the island of Maui, Hawaii, in 2003 and later went on to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 2012. He has lived full time in Sitka since 2014, and has two kids.
In his career, he writes music and performs on guitar, bass, drums and piano. In Sitka he also plays in Ya Tseen, a group led by Nicholas Galanin. His other career is as a fisherman on the tender and longliner Hula Girl.
“After I graduated from music school I decided to come back to Sitka and make my home base here instead of going to L.A. or NYC, like a lot of my friends,” Dylan said. “I have been working on this studio for about six years now and am getting closer and closer to completion. Having support from the Rasmuson Foundation is a really great push to help me complete things.”
Project Awards support artists at all career stages for specific, short-term works. The individual artist award recipients were selected by a diverse panel of artists and arts professionals from around the U.S. and beyond who are experts in their fields.
“The panel this year was impressed by Zak’s skilled musicianship and his dedication to the music community in Sitka,” said Enzina Marrari, the Rasmuson program officer who oversees the Individual Artist Awards. “They were excited about the impact Zak’s project – completion of the construction of his music studio – would have on growing his craft and the collateral impact this studio would have for musicians throughout Alaska, and especially those in Sitka.”
Dylan’s studio, Marrari added, will be the only one of its kind in Sitka and will serve as a great resource for musicians in Sitka as well as a global network of artists.
In discussing his work, Dylan said in his proposal, “The musical album or song is something that we can take with us and listen to whenever we want to, however many times we want to. These recorded songs become the soundtrack to certain parts of our life and take on special meaning to us as individuals and to society as a whole. That is the power of recorded music.”
Marrari said the evaluation panel connected to the power this project would have for Dylan, Sitka and Alaskan musicians.
There were 230 applications this year for Rasmuson fellowship and project awards. A national panel of artists and community leaders from outside Alaska selected the 37 who were honored.
This year marks the 19th year of the Rasmuson Individual Artist Awards.
“The program has evolved since 2004 but one constant remains: The best way to support the arts is to put money directly in the hands of artists,” Diane Kaplan, foundation president and CEO, said in the announcement.
The 2022 artists come from 15 Alaska communities: Akiak, Anchorage, Eagle River, Fairbanks, Healy, Homer, Hope, Juneau, Kaktovik, Larsen Bay, Palmer, Soldotna, Talkeetna, Sitka, and Utqiaġvik.
“It’s exciting to see the energy of this year’s Individual Artist Award recipients. Alaska’s artists continue to amaze us with their creativity and dedication,” Marrari said.
Including the awards announced last week, the program has made a total of 626 grants to individual Alaska artists: 441 Project Awards, 164 Fellowships, 19 Distinguished Artist awards and two President’s Awards, totaling almost $6 million for Alaska artists.
