UGA Music Business Program

The UGA Music Business Program continues to capture the hearts and minds of our project team. We see great value in a program that develops the symbiotic disciplines of economics and the arts.

Just recently, our project team decided to commit to a substantial donation in support of the UGA Music Business Program. Hotel Indigo Athens' investors, general contractor, architects, engineers, interior designers, attorneys, and other consultants all agreed to give a portion of their fees generated by the project to the Program. For details, please view our Press Release.

We visited a UGA Music Business Program class yesterday and were greeted by over 80 talented students. Each one displayed a self-made, hand-crafted nameplate, which attested to the individual expression behind each creation. No doubt this was a clever assignment by Bruce Burch and Keith Perissi to teach the students the importance of standing out among a crowd. We are excited to have a student extern, Emmy Bateman, join our Hotel Indigo marketing team. She will be helping us build a student program for attracting music talent to the hotel.

Athens Art Scene

Athens is a gold mine for the arts. Between the University of Georgia's commitment to art education and the larger community's promotion of local talent, there exists a richness of spirit and culture unique to this college town.

For the first time ever, UGA introduced a four-day Arts Festival featuring fine and decorative arts exhibits, as well as musical and theatrical performances. Honoring UGA's new home for arts education, the festival kicked off with the Lamar Dodd School of Art building dedication, which our development team attended this past Thursday. We were very impressed by the building's accomplishments in sustainability, from its green roof to its water conservation efforts (includes a stormwater infiltration system). But the building's most unique sustainable feature is the art on the walls--continuously produced by both faculty and students, and displayed on a rotating basis. Our hotel seeks to create the same community-inspired environment through art exhibits that refresh seasonally.

We are excited to find so many people within the Athens community that share our philosophy about sustainable development as it relates to the arts. From the Athens Design Development group to the Mercury Art Works duo, we are discovering unforeseen opportunities that we cannot wait to realize. The home of Sandi Turner and Chris Wyrick is a good example of what we would like to create within the hotel--a place where the boundary between art gallery and living space blurs: