“Lighting the Way for Artistic Journeys,” ValArts’ mission is to connect artists across disciplines and continents with their art, with other artists, and with community. The ValArts universe includes non-profits in the US and Spain and the 4000 square foot Centre ValArts, located in Valencia, Spain. ValArts is crafting a 100-year plan to create an economically self-sustaining entity that will facilitate transformative experiences for artists and audiences long into the future.

Centre ValArts will be an incubator for creative activity, serving the needs of artists and community. Conceived as an artistic hub and residency space that will flourish into the next century, the founders are very open-minded about how it will evolve. There will certainly be lots of music, as Cindy and Brian are musicians, but the board also includes visual artists, writers, activists, and culinary artists.

Centre ValArts will host performances, give artists a space to develop, rehearse and test new works, host short- and medium-term artist residencies, facilitate artist guild meetings, feature pop-up dinners and art markets, and house workshops and other special events.

Located within the urban center of Valencia, Spain, Centre ValArts is about a 25-minute walk to the iconic Mercat Central. The 4000 square foot facility will have a dedicated performance space that seats 80, recording facilities, a commercial kitchen, flexible community space, two smallish artist apartments, and additional capacity to house artists short-term. The urban setting of the Centre will allow artists to take full advantage of collaboration opportunities, as well as providing a large pool of art appreciators.

ValArts is a natural extension of the work its founders have long pursued—as artists, educators, mentors, and champions of creativity. They believe deeply in the power of art to heal, inspire, and push back against the world’s darker forces, a truth they've witnessed and experienced firsthand, all around the world. 

For years, the founders dreamed of supporting artists and nurturing creativity long past their own lifetimes. Eventually, they realized they could combine their assets and galvanize others to help establish a lasting space for artistic connection. In early 2021, they began actively searching for a viable home for this vision, building relationships with local cultural leaders in several candidate cities. By December 2022, they had identified Valencia, Spain as the ideal location and began focusing their efforts there.

Throughout the development of ValArts, the guiding question has been: “What do we wish we had access to as we were building our art and careers?”

Valencia, Spain is a wonderful place full of music, creativity and community, with warm and friendly people. It is well situated geographically, and relatively stable politically and environmentally.

The third largest city in Spain, it is located on the Mediterranean coast, about two hours east of Madrid and four hours south of Barcelona and has easy transportation connections to other parts of Spain, Europe, and North Africa. At the national level, the state (comunidades autónomas) level and the city level, Spain and the European Union  has good support for cultural institutions, offering grants and tax incentives to non-profits, commercial entities and individual artists engaged in presenting and creating.

Valencia has the most musicians per square kilometer in all of Europe. It has an extensive music and art education infrastructure, and with the Berklee Valencia campus, there is a growing base of music industry professionals. It has some wonderful large venues for live presentations, but it is lacking in spaces that would provide opportunities for up-and-coming artists. ValArts will dramatically improve the situation for developing talent in the region. It will also be a much-needed space for established artists requiring a supportive environment to test new concepts.

We also see ValArts as a bridge for North American artists to get a toehold in Europe, as well as a place for them to sequester themselves and start or finish something they haven’t had the space to do. Touring in Europe, especially when coming from far away, is extremely difficult for early and mid-career artists. The expense of flying across the Atlantic and then traveling around with all of the necessary equipment and instruments is a heavy lift. Furthermore, the complexity of stringing enough performances together in a logical way to make it worth the trip often feels like operating a Rubik’s Cube. ValArts’ location on the ground in Europe will allow for a network of relationships with venues and artists that will facilitate bookings and collaborations. And when there are nights that aren’t booked, artists will have a place to stay, create, and regenerate.

US-based artists need places like this – bridges to extend their artistic reach, grow their inspiration, meet new collaborators, and engage with new artistic modalities while having support on the ground in Europe to help with it all.

We were lucky enough earlier in our careers to have champions in other countries to help us make things happen abroad. Our experiences touring internationally and collaborating, performing and creating with international artists in their home countries significantly widened our capacity for creativity in so many ways.

Although we are at least a year away from the Grand Opening, we are already fielding inquiries for performance opportunities, residency space and workshop hosting on a weekly basis.

Brian Seeger has been an important figure in the New Orleans creative music scene for 30 years, as a performer, composer and a record producer. Music pundit Jay Mazza said he “is one of the unsung heroes of modern New Orleans jazz.” Seeger has performed in over 20 countries, with many jazz dignitaries and culture bearers. His production credits include discs for artists in New Orleans, New York, and across Europe. Seeger has been on the Jazz Studies faculty at the University of New Orleans for 25 years and currently leads the program as the Coca-Cola Endowed Chair since 2022. He can cook a very respectable crawfish etouffee. 

Cindy Scott comes from an extended musical family. Her mother was a concert-level classical pianist who, as a teenager, performed with (and was asked to go on tour with) Hank Williams. Cindy’s father played a dozen different instruments, sometimes more than one at a time, and was a beloved educator, raconteur, and margarita maker. Her parents emigrated to Mexico when they retired and founded a non-profit community assistance program, Operation Feed, that has been serving the local community of the Lake Chapala region for almost 40 years. Both of Cindy’s sisters based their lives around music education. Her cousin, Charlie Hall, founded the acclaimed Colorado Roots Music Camp. Cindy is an accomplished vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist herself. She currently teaches full-time at the Berklee College of Music and is the Director of the Berklee Vocal Summit. Along with her master's degree in jazz performance, she earned a master's degree in international business from the prestigious University of South Carolina. She speaks Spanish and German.

Many people have been invaluable in the creation of the project, donating money, instruments, time, expertise and insight to the project. (We’re keeping a list!) ValArts has a strong legal, accounting and design team both in the US and in Valencia. In Valencia, we have developed great relations with SedaJazz, the preeminent community music teaching institution in the region, as well as with important faculty and administrators at Berklee Valencia. Our group of advisors in Valencia include specialists in non-profits, regulatory experts, writers, musicians, and visual artists. They also know where to get the best grilled sardines and paella. 

At this time, the space for Centre ValArts has been purchased. We are currently in the architectural design stage and preliminary permitting. We have started doing small community building events, including a “Before Hang,” a holiday dinner for local music luminaries, and several other small introductory  events. We are shooting for a soft opening of Centre ValArts in Fall of 2026, with our Grand Opening Gala to be in the first half of 2027. Let us know if you’d like an invitation!

This is a complex question. To do all the things we imagine, including having an endowment for artist residency support, additional residency spaces and other long-term funding for operational support, we estimate the project will need $1.7 million.

To get to the opening of the fully functional Centre ValArts, we estimate it will cost about $1.1 million. The founders have committed at least $850,000 to the project, $560,000 of which has already been spent. We anticipate several fundraising campaigns and grant writing cycles will be needed to fully fund the dreamiest scenario. We already have verbal commitments from several donors for additional support.

ValArts USA is a 501c3 non-profit organization. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please reach out to Brian Seeger, brian@brianseeger.com (646) 283-3987, or Cindy Scott, cindy_scott@hotmail.com (504) 810-8386 for details. 

There are also several non-monetary contributions we are seeking, such as a professional quality grand piano, other sound and video infrastructure, and things like chairs and tables. We are also offering the naming rights for the performance space, the artist residencies, and the artist support endowments if you are interested in making a larger contribution.

#1 – send good vibes and positive thoughts. #2 – there are any number of areas that could use logistic or creative support, from web design, branding, newsletters, accounting, fundraising and more. #3 – plan a visit to the Centre ValArts and we’ll hand you an apron, a broom, or a paint brush. #4 – maybe you are not in the place to make a monetary contribution, but if you have friends or family members that are looking to support an amazing facility and mission, please tell them about us.