The Winchester Cultural Council has awarded $9,567 in LCC grants to 16 individuals and organizations for 2020. Grant funding was significantly higher than in past years thanks in part to a meaningful commitment to the arts from the town of Winchester in the 2019–2020 budget: two grants were made solely using town funding. Grant projects and recipients are:
- The annual Chinese New Year celebration, January 26, 2020. Organized and hosted by Winchester School of Chinese Culture at Winchester High School, the celebration includes performances by schoolchildren and by Chinese performing arts artists from neighboring towns. After the performance, there is a Chinese New Year style lunch, and there are arts and crafts and New Year gifts for the children.
- Peking Opera Performance at the Chinese New Year Celebration, January 26, 2020. A performance of Peking Opera works by local amateurs and professionals.
- Chinese Dancing Lions, January 20 to February 20, 2020. A Chinese Dancing Lion Troupe will have a small parade in front of each primary school in Winchester during the time of the Chinese New Year celebration.
- The Fourth Wall's "Fruit Flies Like a Banana," February 3, 2020. An arts enrichment program at Kids' Corner for children in kindergarten through sixth grade that includes a novel and engaging hybrid performance style that makes the arts more accessible to children.
- Faculty Concerts at the Winchester Community Music School, Year-round. A dynamic line-up of musical programming featuring free live music by WCMS faculty throughout the school year. Concerts slated for spring 2020 include “Dreams & Meditations” (February 28), a multi-dimensional performance highlighting clarinet and sitar and “Songs of Urgency, Advocacy, and Hope” (March 27), an inspirational concert that celebrates stewardship of our earth and its inhabitants.
- From Ireland to America, March 5, 2020. A one-hour music festive celebration of Irish and Irish-American culture with Roger Ticknell at the Jenks Center that includes lovely Irish ballads, sea shanties, and Irish American work songs, from familiar traditional Irish and Irish American sing-alongs to toe-tapping jigs and reels instrumentals. The audience will be encouraged to sing, clap and dance. Irish step dancing and spoon playing instruction will also be provided!
- We Did It For You, March 8, 2020. A musical theater performance at McCall Middle School sponsored by the League of Women Voters that provides a quick tour through the journey that women have taken to get rights in the United States. The play focuses on the stories of some of the women who believed they deserved more than being treated as minors and extensions of men—from Sojournor Truth and Susan B. Anthony to Rosa Parks and Betty Friedan.
- A performance of Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet on March 11, 2020 by New Repertory Theatre's Classic Repertory Company, for students at Winchester High School.
- ScienceTellers: Aliens Escape from Earth, April 22, 2020. A science-oriented presentation for families at the Winchester Recreation Department. The ScienceTeller relates a fun, original story, broken up into short chapters, each with an exciting visual or audial element that is brought to life through a corresponding science experiment.
- A Celebration of Song, April 24, 2020. John Root will sing and play flute, clarinet and saxophone in an hour-long program at the Winchester Nursing Center featuring familiar songs from the first half of the twentieth century. Everyone will be invited to sing along, and requests for favorite selections will be welcome.
- Ecomusic: Conservation as an Artistic Practice, concert May 8, 2020. A three-pronged conservation residency at the First Congregational Church combining conservation, art, and music. In partnership with the children of the Neighborhood Cooperative Nursery School, the church will provide a designated Monarch Waystation, and Ecomusic will provide a local entomology program and exhibit for the community. Ecomusic has commissioned a new composition from American composer Luke Blackburn, which the professional ensemble Hub New Music will perform in the church's newly renovated Ripley Chapel.
- Winchester Porchfest, June 13, 2020. Porchfest is a unique, volunteer-organized, one-day community-building music festival. Winchester residents will lend their porches as pop-up micro-stages to amateur musicians who will showcase their musical talent to neighbors who will walk around town and join other community members in enjoying concerts and the atmosphere. Many towns in the Boston area have organized successful porchfests for the past several years, including Somerville and Arlington.
- The Fence, June through October 2020. As the first event of the Winchester Cultural District, the Griffin Museum of Photography will bring the largest public photography installation in North America to Winchester.
- Letters Trellis, all summer on the Winchester Town Common. Five times during the summer a letter-writing booth will be set up on the Winchester Common where visitors may create a letter. Based on the letter tables nestled in tiny courtyards in the hill town of Grignan, France, for the annual celebration of the art of letters, the setting will feature a garden trellis decorated with seasonal motifs. A writing table, chair, and writing supplies (including pens, paper, envelopes, and postage stamps) will be centered within the semi-enclosed space, inviting inspiration from the sense of community surrounding the writer. Conducted by Karen Fullerton and Shukong Ou.
- Imagine Your Story, June 29. A unique 45–50 minute family-oriented magic and juggling performance by Scott Jameson at the Winchester Public Library which connects to the 2020 Summer Reading Program theme, with routines which explore imagination, fantasy, and mythology.
- This Is Winchester: Town Meeting, the first in a series of short videos about the town’s civic organizations. The video, showing in story form the election process, creation of warrant articles, and discussion of issues at the meeting, is intended to encourage more residents to get involved in their government.