The new Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, which has two concert halls, opened in January 1985. The Ordway is the home of the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera Company, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The privately owned, nonprofit theater was built for about $45 million and was founded by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corp. and other private sources. In 1999, the Ordway received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to use interactive video-conferencing technology to develop an "electronic field trip" accessible to student audiences across the state.
The St. Olaf College Choir, at Northfield, has a national reputation. The Tyrone Guthrie Theater, founded in Minneapolis in 1963, is one of the nation's most prestigious repertory companies. The Minnesota Ballet is based in Duluth.
Literary arts are active in the state. The Loft, founded in 1974 in Minneapolis, is considered to be one of the nation's largest and most comprehensive literary centers. Milkweed Editions is a well-known, award-winning, nonprofit literary publisher of books on cultural diversity, environmental stewardship, poetry, and literature for adults and children in the middle grades.
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is an innovative museum with an outstanding contemporary collection, while the Minneapolis Institute of Arts exhibits more traditional works. The Weisman Art Museum of the University of Minnesota is in Minneapolis, and the Minnesota Museum of Art is in St. Paul.
State and regional arts groups as well as individual artists are supported by state and federal grants administered through the State Arts Board, an 11-member panel appointed by the governor. In 2003, the Minnesota State Arts Board and other Minnesota arts organizations received grants totaling $4,227,800 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The State Arts Board was also given funding from the state and from private sources. The state offers arts education to about 50,000 schoolchildren, with approximately 2,500 teachers participating in the programs. Local art associations as well as state art associations continue to contribute to the art education programs. The Minnesota Humanities Commission was founded in 1971. In 2000, the National Endowment for the Humanities contributed $1,812,839 to 19 state programs.