Arts Engines

We will be mounting the world premiere of Sheila Silver and Stephen Kitsakos’s opera A Thousand Splendid Suns, based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini, in February 2023. The opera will be directed by award-winning Afghan film director Roya Sadat. We would like our show to focus on Seattle Opera’s community engagement efforts surrounding this opera, as well as the broader topic of how to engage and partner with communities in connection with new works.

NWS collaborations and inclusive programming.

How the PSO has evolved to be a more inclusive organization through its work with the disability community

Radical Excellence: How The People's Music School democratizes access to the life-altering benefits of intensive music education

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Partnership with NY Philharmonic

more collaboration between jazz, dance, theatre, strings, choir, etc. After the protests of 2020, many music departments made a good effort to acknowledge contributions of people of color. how can that be sustained. Timely discussions that represent the many different cultures represented in my classrooms

Research and statistics on the economic impact of BIPOC cultural organizations on their local communities

Seattle Symphony's work in engaging with Ingenious communities in the Pacific Northwest

Teacher shortage, and ways to support teachers from underrepresented backgrounds enter the music education profession, particularly the string teaching, profession

Preparing musicians/artists for life beyond the "academy"

Goals and impact of Gateways

Founder & Executive Director, Javacya Arts Conservatory

Board engagement. Strategies that are heightening board member engagement for us. His role in helping to advance NASAA’s equity agenda. Arts work locally, at the state level, regionally and nationally

MAP Program Gift and commissioning

Caramoor's mission, and how as a new leader, one can make systemic change to move an organization forward-there can be many questions embedded in this such as working with and leading the board and staff through change, addressing programming, etc. The inspiration question is a good one, as well as the importance of the arts.

Article for the Finnish Journal of Music Education (FJME) in 2021, "Reframing Leadership as Scholarship: A New Paradigm for 21st Century Global Arts Higher Education" that reflects a long-term interest I have in looking at the natural potential advantages artists have as leaders. The qualities that I believe are in alignment with strong leadership are openness to ideas, original thinking and what I would call peripheral vision -- seeing things that are not obvious, not straight in front of you, perhaps unlikely, but are nonetheless there to find, or invent.

Baltimore Symphony

New Jersey Symphony - The centennial and what’s ahead beyond it

Kennedy Center

Student services for performing arts students. endeavor to instate the student affairs liaison in CCPA, support to building the Minority Student Success Group (MSSG) and extending the connection to the rest of the city, the Veteran support center and how it affects and benefits performing arts students whose backgrounds are service bands.

20th anniversary serving as dean

New role for us that combines HR functionality with a Chief Diversity Officer role. The priorities of that role and how the elements of it fit together

Fostering collaboration among teams

History and upcoming season and partnership with Sphinx

Caramoor's mission, and how as a new leader, one can make systemic change to move an organization forward-there can be many questions embedded in this such as working with and leading the board and staff through change, addressing programming, etc. The inspiration question is a good one, as well as the importance of the arts.

Sphinx Virtuosi Deutsche Gramophone album release

Steans Music Institute; We are undergoing an artistic leadership change with our Piano and Strings program.

Opera America, President & CEO

Honoring the past by investing in its future. Balancing an investment into human capital and the restoration of a historical Iconic Building.

Processes that resulted in some of the top leaders of color in the arts & culture management industry across artistic disciplines, educational institutions, national service organizations

The importance of arts education and what it does for rebuilding community and general wellness (creative artmaking as part of joy and wellbeing).

DEI initiatives that we’ve launched and continue to grow at the DSO

The Jackson House, moving from Alabama to Michigan

Manager of Data, Research & DEI Initiative

Harlem Renaissance festival and the challenges and rewards of changing how we program.

Focus on the creation and development of young people in COTG, and the role of a gospel choir in an arts presenter. We’re the only arts presenter in the country with two resident gospel choirs. It’s a unique perspective.

The Curb Center’s many arts-driven projects in the Nashville community, including our current, community-wide Art of Healing response to the pandemic, which has involved over 160 local artists; three medical centers; over 50 community events running from September 2021-December 2022; exhibits at a number of venues around the city; workshops and events revolving around aphasia art and music, creative writing, palliative care, autism, and music cognition; and an exhibit of art from the World Health Organization.

Post-COVID Fundraising in the Arts

Incubating Next-Gen Talent: Who will be our orchestras’ next generation of administrators? What qualities will they need to navigate the post-pandemic future? How do we go about attracting and retaining a diverse talent pool?

Dean of Colburn School’s dance program

Post-COVID Fundraising in the Arts

Co-Founder & Artistic Director of the Black Theatre Coalition

Changing music education in America

Sarah Johnson

President, Chicago Symphony

How state arts agencies are working to advance equity in their grantmaking practices. Specifically, the game-changing work at Mass Cultural Council and the development of the agency’s first racial equity plan. This rigorous plan, developed in cooperation with artists and organizations across the state, will change the DNA of state arts support for Massachusetts. It calls for deep internal and external work to propel equitable arts support forward, and its specificity creates ample opportunities for internal and public-facing accountability to ensure the work moves forward.

President & Artistic Director, Gateways Music Festival

Chapman faculty & Founding artistic director and resident choreographer of Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Board Member of EUYO & general director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

Senior Associate Dean and Special Advisor to the President for Strategic Engagement

The BIPOC Moment: Philanthropy has recently begun to level the economic planning field by making large contributions to BIPOC organizations around the country. How are BIPOC organizations responding to this new found largess and what are the challenges and opportunities of this moment in our collective cultural history. The session will explore what some organizations are doing with these funds and how they are envisioning their future in light of these contributions. In particular I would like to explore the question of whether the organizations feel this is a transitory moment or a sea change in the philanthropic environment and how the answer to that question might be driving some of the approaches to how BIPOC organizations are using the new found funding.

Composer-in-Residence

DBR's activities with the Orchestra throughout the season and look to the world premiere we will perform for our season finale.

Alumnus of Aspen & Principal Oboe with Nashville

Manager of Data, Research & DEI Initiative

Chicago Sinfonietta

New BA curriculum

Brief intro of Nolen and organization Talk about Nolen’s Six Principles for Transformative Change - https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts/strategic-realignment-process/ceos-six-ideas-towards-cultural-shiftPromote SRP work to highlight the recommendations coming from the field and AFTA’s next steps in that process.

Curb Center’s Arts Administration Incubator’s work within the Nashville community and the projects they are doing with our cohort of Curb Scholars

Steps towards building an anti-racist arts organization

Reach Teach Play programs that now serve over 75,000 community members around the Chicagoland area each year.

Colors of Classical Music

Musical Pathways programs and Family Engagement

Carnegie Gala

Wilkinson Foundation-Aspen Music Festival and School

VP for DEI-Northern Illinois University

Women in Classical Music Symposium

Reframing the classical music canon

WHIN Music- Co-Founder & Executive Director

We would partner with Aaron Diehl for our Arts Engine episode to fully explore the theme of showcasing unsung composers not traditionally showcased or restoration of works. He will perform Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite this spring with the Orchestra

President & CEO - Chicago Sinfonietta

Manhattan School of Music-Concertmaster of the Met Orchestra

20th anniversary serving as dean

CEO - Toronto Symphony

Shanghai Sonatas- a new musical

Seeing regular ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others who are out there protecting us and for me, that is where I get my inspiration." Don't miss Mary Anne Carter, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts share her thoughts related to creativity on the inaugural Arts Engines show!

We're not really anymore a concert hall that presents just wonderful concerts that are extraordinary events, but we are trying to tell stories and stimulate people to take journeys..." Clive Gillinson, Exec. & Artistic Dir. of Carnegie Hall shares about leading the nation's concert hall during unprecedented times.

Art & Culture is the aspect of our society that brings meaning to the people. They are what you are working for... what you are trying to survive for. They make us more human." Bob Lynch, Pres. of Americans for the Arts speaks to the importance of arts advocacy in a changing world.

You can see this tremendous need for people to connect to their sense of creativity... their sense of how to find hope... and I think the arts are crucial to keeping us feeling that we do have hope... at times when we are really in need of that." Bennett Rink, Exec. Dir. of Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation speaks to the role of dance and the arts today.

The arts can help lift any human being above the vicissitudes, fears, and disappointments of the day." Hear more fascinating perspectives on creativity from Dr. Ronald Crutcher, cellist and President, University of Richmond.

We are in an informal age and we are playing formal music and we have to find the bridge from one to the next. We are also in an ever more racially diverse community and country and we must go across that bridge as well.” Howard Herring, President & CEO of the New World Symphony speaks to building a future for the arts.

I think in this moment, my job is to convene, listen, activate, imagine, propose, procure, provoke, push... all the things that a really qualified virtuoso arts administrator would do."

I discovered that there was such a thing as arts administration and that was it. I didn’t want to be the person on stage… ever. I wanted to be the one who got people there so… arts administration was for me!” Teresa Eyring, Executive Director of Theatre Communciations Group speaks about her passion for leading in the arts.

We have the artistic imperative and we have the social imperative… and where do we find the intersection of those two needs? And that was fascinating to try to find our way through that… and there aren’t easy answers.” Deborah Borda, CEO of the NY Philharmonic shares her leadership experiences.

Let’s think about how we will express our collective joy and creativity three years from now, when we have the vaccine and medical treatments… we need to be prepared to tell the stories of that journey and opera is one of the most powerful ways to tell that story.” Marc Scorca, President and CEO of Opera America discusses the role of Opera in an evolving nation.

The fact of the matter is, that for as long as there have been homo sapiens, there has been art. Whether it was people putting their hands on the face of a cave 40,000 years ago… it is an inescapable need… and, in that sense, I would never be apologetic about the arts.” Marshall Marcus, CEO of the European Youth Orchestra speaks to the importance of the arts.

So when you’re feeling all that pressure and stress, I think being able to ground yourself in the “why you do this work” and, if you really believe the arts are needed for a healthy society, you pick yourself up and you keep on going.” Amy Fitterer, Executive Director of Dance/USA shares thoughts on arts leadership.

If we don’t take seriously that people live in a symbolic world… and expression and narrative and story and song, poetry… that all of that is essential to how we navigate and understand? Then we’re always only going to have half the solution.” Steven Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University shares wisdom on the role of arts.

Music is a universal language and it has the capacity to pull at your heart in a funny way and if you need something, some inspiration to draw on, I think you can find a piece of music for any need.” Hear Victoria Robey, Chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra speak to the power of music in a changing world

Confusion and ambiguity are not your friends. You must know what it is you want to do. After you have articulated what that is, you have to make some sort of tangible, tactical plan to get you where you want to go.” Margaret Lioi, CEO of Chamber Music America shares how to develop as a musician in today’s world.

Being an educated individual as part of today’s world… the arts play really an integral relationship…” Toni-Marie Montgomery shares her thoughts as dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University

One way to get to know folks in an institution like Ravinia or an orchestra, opera company, dance company or theatre is to not use the words “mission statement” because everyone goes to sleep when you say it… but to talk about… Who are we? Is who we are everything we want to be or could be? And, if not… how do we get there?

How is it that these people, brought involuntarily and denied their humanity, have created and invented the culture that has rocked the world for hundreds of years? Black music, Black dance, in different variations inventing the form of the slave narrative. What Black poetry has done over the course, especially of the last century… I think that there is a relationship between being denied humanity and voice with finding voice and self-expression.”

At the end of the day, I don’t produce any sound when I conduct. They are the ones who create that special magic. And for that limited amount of time, we have that possibility… collectively, to reach a certain level that’s probably not possible for each one of us individually… that’s the magic of orchestras.

In every culture… the human voice, it’s as basic as breathing. That connection to me, it's one of the foremost foundational forms of communicating. And so, that is to me why choral music… or singing is so powerful.

Becoming a composer is about sharing your music. Whatever you create has to then become observed by someone else or performed by someone else in my case. So, it was really about having the bravery to get over that one crucial step of… I have created this thing and now I’m gonna share it with somebody.

None of the jazz standards are written by women. Most of the band leaders aren’t. So, you have patrons, presenters, radio journalists… all people that are coming now more to a consciousness around this issue and I see it changing so I’m extremely hopeful but in ten years I would really like to not have to have an institute like this.

We gotta get out of this tower. We’ve got to engage with the communities of Southeast Michigan… the communities of shared heritage, the educational communities, the nonprofit community, the business community, and that means… get out of the tower.

As long as you come at it from a perspective of humility and knowing that your first steps are not going to be your last steps, then I think that just going ahead and starting with whatever is in your mind, “Okay, I can do this, I can do this,” let’s start there and see where it leads.” Saxophonist and educator Steven Banks speaks to how orchestras can further diversity in their organizations.

Music is the way that we interact with the world, it’s an interface. It gives us voice to how we experience the world. We all love, we all live, we all struggle.

It is our job to be responsible for the upkeep of our art form… to nourish it and to also push it forward.” Conductor and social entrepreneur Roderick Cox talks about the role of musicians.

I want to see action. I want to see change. I want to see investment. I want to see not that EDI (Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) is something you need to do, but that this is a value we have in our organizations.

There was a moment where, through this pandemic, I got re-inspired to think again. It made me get off the treadmill of exactness and repetition and find a different path. It made me start thinking again. From this ugliness, from this brokenness, I am feeling a way to heal and heal stronger like any bone that comes back. So, I see this as an opportunity.

I hope that what this time does for us is blows open these myopic views of success that we have sort of held on to, and help us all as artists to go deep into What is my unique contribution? What will I contribute? What will my voice look like?

In my home office there are literally pictures of students on the wall next to me… at my desk at work at times when I was in person. I always keep pictures of students so that, as I am making decisions, designing a theory test or I’m deciding on a speaker to bring in… I am literally keeping students front and center.

Artists have missed that sense of connection to audience. Audiences have missed that in-person experience. We are all co-dependent. And so, I look forward to doing all we can to not resume where we left off but to even go beyond that point in terms of meaningful engagement.

We’re finally have the conversation at a high enough level with important enough people that I think maybe something can change. And, I think companies and arts organizations are starting to see that need people who look like you and who look like me at the table.

This is your community. What is it that you want to see… and why? And let’s organize ourselves and make it happen.

We’ve taken the challenges brought on by COVID and actually turned them into opportunities. And so, what we present now is just a reflection of what we’ve always wanted to do and what we really care a lot about within our own communities.

Challenge them to think like leaders, to think like entrepreneurs. And I think that will bring us to a place where we have a whole new society and a whole new way of presenting the arts.

Yes, Music is our life, but it is really a vehicle… a vehicle of communication between people. It really is about people.