“Arts leadership plays a crucial role in fostering creativity, innovation, and cultural enrichment. I believe that effective arts leaders inspire and guide individuals and organizations within the creative sector to achieve their full potential. By promoting collaboration, supporting diverse voices, and advocating for the value of the arts in society, arts leaders drive positive change and contribute to the vibrancy of our communities. ”
HIGHLIGHTS OF ARTS LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
Dean of Juilliard Extension, The Juilliard School, New York, New York, 2020 to Present
Administration
Plan and develop curriculum, oversee divisional budget, report statistics, and establish academic calendars to senior leadership and Board of Trustees.
Relaunched the Evening Division as Juilliard Extension and promoting it as a center for lifelong learning, supporting the program's traditional courses while conceiving and piloting innovative offerings that will expand participants’ knowledge of the performing arts.
Advise prospective and current students, retain loyal, longtime participants while attracting new interest from underserved parts of the lifelong learning community
Provide oversight and management of Juilliard’s summer youth programs including Percussion, Summer Dance, Sphinx Performance Academy, Juilliard Summer Winds, Starling-Delay Symposium, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, The Jimmy Awards, the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival and the Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar.
Curriculum Development
Hire approximately 100 faculty and over 200 guest and student performers annually. Negotiate salaries, and manage faculty to their highest standard of performance.
Curate over 150 courses a year in professional development for performing arts professions, history and appreciation courses for lifelong enthusiasts, and applied study in dance, music, and drama for students of all ages and abilities.
New Initiatives
Through pilot projects and program enhancements, develop a higher profile and a more distinctive presence for lifelong learning as Juilliard reaches out to broader, multigenerational, diverse audiences.
Created Juilliard Lifelong Learning: Pioneered and successfully launched the inaugural Juilliard Lifelong Learning program, a pioneering initiative in creative aging arts education, designed to enhance the well-being and cognitive abilities of older adults through transformative arts-based interventions.
Created Juilliard at Work, a new arts based professional development program which centers the development of business skills through a performing arts lens.
Lead initiatives that generate substantial additional revenue; define appropriate Key Performance Indicators and create reporting systems that interface with other units of the School; collaborate with other public-facing parts of the school such as box office, store, and memberships to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that drive patron engagement and revenue
Lead responsibility for developing concepts for additional non-matriculating programming at Juilliard, addressing new opportunities, as well as initiating new program ideas and analyzing new earned revenue opportunities for summer at Juilliard.
Notable Achievements
Increased summer semester revenue by 300% in two years
Doubled student population from 650 students in 2019 to over 1,300 students today.
Dramatically expanded curriculum topics in dance, music, and drama both online and in person including professional development, courses for high school students, and increased performance classes.
Successfully navigated the challenges of the pandemic and met or exceeded all budgetary projections during this time.
Introduced online learning to Juilliard Extension.
Successfully led 18-month strategic initiative to rebrand and rename Juilliard Extension.
Director, Learning and Leadership Programs, League of American Orchestras, New York, NY, 2017- 2019
National Conference
Served as the primary architect for the largest gathering of orchestras professionals in the world with over 1,200 attendees annually.
Design over 20 elective sessions across five content tracks over a period of three days.
Lead staff team to coordinate with speakers, meet production deadlines, and ensure program delivery.
Essentials of Orchestra Management Seminar
Primary curriculum designer and program architect for this annual ten-day seminar on the campus of the University of Southern California (now presented at The Juilliard School)
Managed four core faculty members and twenty guest faculty.
Led transformation into a blended learning format, synthesized with digital learning offer.
Mid-Winter Managers’ Meeting
Developed session objectives, formats, speakers and titles.
Produced keynote sessions and collaborated on copy for speeches.
Liaised with speakers and constituent meeting leads, to ensure session quality / cohesion.
Managed production / co-ordination of Constituent Group meetings.
Led evolution within digital learning strategy.
Artistic Programs Lead:
Ford Musician Awards Program
Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview
Ensured new partnership agreement terms for Music Alive, Toulmin, Earshot, ASCAP and Shift Festival programs are met.
Digital Learning:
Developed and maintained relevant knowledge of digital learning issues, trends and best practices, and of the work of relevant digital learning providers in the arts and non-profit management fields. Identify and connect with potential partners in the digital learning realm.
Co-led R&D process with VP, lead audit of current resources, shape R&D recommendations into implementation plan.
Led pilot and implementation.
Managed digital content production and its synthesis with in-person learning events.
Institutional Partnerships and Foundations
Led and served as content creator with the communications partnership with Wallace Foundation on the Building Audience Sustainability initiative.
Led program delivery on all seminars, webinars, online resources, etc. funded by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Partnered on programs funded by the Mellon Foundation, Getty Foundation, Gillman Foundation and more.
Constituent Liaison Work:
Constituent Liaison for the following national constituency groups (in practice, Conference Constituent Group meeting design / production) to artistic administrators, orchestra trustees, symphony musicians, and conductors.
Executive Director,UMass Lowell String Project, Lowell, MA, 2013 – 2017
Administration:
Presented two annual Winter/Spring Showcase Concerts attended by over 900 people each year in the Merrimack Valley.
Presented annual UMLSP recruitment concerts and educational workshops for 1,000 public school students in twelve elementary schools in the Lowell Public School District.
Partnered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra Community Chamber Concerts department to present a joint concert with the UMLSP student orchestra.
Co-presented “You’ve Got to Love the Life: An Evening with Melissa Manchester” in which UMLSP students performed with Grammy Award winning artist Melissa Manchester and local public school children.
Managed staff of fifteen teaching artists, five administrative aides and one master teacher.
Dissemination:
Raised enrollment 125% with a successful institutional marketing campaign through public school teachers and other community music organizations
Liaised with Office of University Affairs to promote UMLSP events in regional print and e-publications such as the Boston Globe, Lowell Sun, and Eagle-Tribune.
Collage: UMass Lowell String Project Students, Teaching Artists, Staff Members, and other UMass Lowell Music students. 2015 Winter Showcase and 2016 Spring Showcase photos courtesy of Tory Germann Photography and 2015-16 Promotional photos courtesy of Greg Mahan Photography.
Director of Education, The Little Orchestra Society, 2011 (New York, NY)
Program Administration
Restructured and implemented a new digital presence for LOS education programs.
Collaborated with guest artists and teaching artists for special programming.
Partnered with NYC public school administrators and educators to plan attendance of over 1,500 students at LOS concerts hosted at David Geffen Hall.
Determined program goals, strategic plan, and teaching models implemented in programs impacting over 3,000 students, parents, and teachers.
Served as the principal administrator for education division finances, annual budget.
Planned and held many special events and private donor experiences with organizations such as Lincoln Center Institute and VH1 Save the Music Foundation.
Public speaking and Conference Presentations:
“The Creative Edge”, Keynote for Goldman Sachs Alternative Assets Manager Forum, Austin, TX 2023
“Designing Arts Experiences for a Client”, Guest Speaker, New York University Shanghai, 2021
“Designing Tech and Experiences for Music”, Guest Speaker, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, 2016
“Community Music: The Future of Music Education”, Featured Speaker, IMPACT Conference, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, 2016
“The HeART of the Matter: Arts Entrepreneurship in the Undergraduate Curriculum”, presenter, Deshpande Foundation Symposium on Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, 2015
“A River Runs Through It: Creative Economy in the Merrimack Valley”, keynote speaker, Greater Lowell Community Foundation, 2015
“Effective Program Management Strategies for String Project Sites”, presenter, American String Teachers Association Conference, 2015
“Music & Arts: Learning from the Creative Process”, featured panelist, Deshpande Foundation Symposium on Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, 2014
“Creating a Portfolio Career”, guest speaker, UMass Lowell DifferenceMakers®, 2014
“Why Don’t They Show Up? Audience Development Strategies for Modern Musicians”, featured panelist, Chamber Music America Conference, 2013
“Developing Your Personal Brand”, keynote speaker, The New School for Music: Mannes College, 2013
UMass Lowell String Project, image courtesy of Tory Germann Photography