COT Music Director Pens Series on Responsibilities of Artistic Leaders in the 21st Century
“Those who embark on this path can foster creativity and collaboration, open doors that may otherwise remain closed, increase the number of voices represented, and ultimately move classical music toward a more viable future.” Lidiya Yankovskaya has penned a wide-ranging series on the evolving responsibilities of musical leaders.
August 28, 2019
““As mobilizers and catalysts for change, conductors from diverse backgrounds—spanning cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender boundaries—can have an opportunity to make an impact on our field, even when initially halted by gate-keeping institutions. Those who embark on this path can foster creativity and collaboration, open doors that may otherwise remain closed, increase the number of voices represented, and ultimately move classical music toward a more viable future.””
Lidiya Yankovskaya, Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, shared her thought leadership in an articulate four-part series for NewMusicBox. Speaking from her diverse experiences as a conductor, activist, and ensemble-leader, Yankovskaya covers everything from the roles of artists as activists, expanding the American canon, and working to create a plurality of voices in classical music.
Photo by Kathy Wittman
Chicago Opera Theater Joins Verismo Roster
Led by millennial women, Chicago Opera Theater is emerging from the recent leadership transition as a company laser-focused on living its values.
July 26, 2019
Chicago Opera Theater brings a demonstrated commitment to equity, a multi-pronged approach to nurturing new works and creators, and a boldly millennial voice to the industry. Verismo Communications is proud to be representing COT for a full season of Chicago premieres, including a double bill of Everest / Aleko, the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride, and Nathan Gunn’s role debut in David T. Little’s Soldier Songs.
Company Overview
Led by millennial women, Chicago Opera Theater is emerging from the recent leadership transition as a company laser-focused on living its values:
• expanding the tradition of opera as a living art form
• producing high-quality works that are new to Chicago audiences
• identifying top-tier casts and creative talent at the beginning of grand operatic careers
• leading the industry in Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility initiatives
Since its founding in 1973, COT has staged over 125 operas, including 66 Chicago premieres and 36 operas by American composers. COT is led by Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson General Director Ashley Magnus and Orli and Bill Staley Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya, who is the only woman to hold the title of music director at a multimillion-dollar opera company in the United States.
In addition to its mainstage season, COT is devoted to the development and production of new opera in the United States through its three-pronged Vanguard Initiative, launched in 2018. The Vanguard Initiative mentors emerging opera composers, invests time and talent in new opera at various stages of the creative process, and presents the Living Opera Series to showcase new and developing work.
Committed to leading the charge to increase representation onstage and behind the scenes. In the coming season, 47% of artists (singers/conductors/directors) are ALAANA; 20% of staff are people of color; 27% of staff identify as LGBTQIA; 37% of board members are female-identified.
Turn The Spotlight Foundation to Mentor Arts Leaders
Turn The Spotlight’s mission is to identify, nurture, and empower leaders, and in turn, illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts. The foundation was created to pair top-tier mentors with exceptional women, people of color, and other equity-seeking groups in the arts.
July 31, 2018
Lumos Fellows Elena Uriote and Melissa White. Photo by Daniel Cavazos
Today, twenty-one arts leaders and activists announce the launch of Turn The Spotlight, a foundation created to pair top-tier mentors with exceptional women, people of color, and other equity-seeking groups in the arts. Beth Stewart, a New York City-based arts entrepreneur and classical music publicist, will lead the foundation, which is supported by an Advisory Board of arts world luminaries, including soprano Julia Bullock, journalists Anne Midgette and Celeste Headlee, conductors Lidiya Yankovskaya and Nicole Paiement, stage director Francesca Zambello, classical music publicist Mary Lou Falcone, arts advocates Monica Yunus and Camille Zamora, and women’s rights advocate Amanda Mejia.
“We believe that systemic change is crucial,” said Turn The Spotlight Founder Beth Stewart. “We also believe that one-on-one mentoring can have real impact, particularly in an industry in which so many professionals are freelancers working outside an established institutional framework. Our mission is to identify, nurture, and empower leaders, and in turn, illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts.”
Stewart has recruited ten industry-leading mentors from a wide range of artistic specialties, including Emmy Award-winning documentarian Kristin Atwell Ford, producer/director Avery Willis Hoffman, Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, and composer Kamala Sankaram. They will join arts activists Alysia Lee, Rebecca McFaul and Anne Francis Bayless, sopranos Heidi Melton and Corinne Winters, and designer Jessica Jahn in mentoring the foundation’s fellows during the 2018/19 season.
“Nearly all of our first cohort of Lumos Fellows have founded organizations, produced or commissioned new work. Each has a distinctive voice and clear personal mission, and they are committed to using their art to strengthen their communities. We believe these versatile and inventive arts leaders and activists are the way forward,” said Stewart.
The 2018/19 Lumos Fellows will collaborate on a striking breadth of projects, ranging from building community investment in arts entrepreneurship to developing a line of gender non-binary swimwear, and confronting personal violence through performance. The Fellows include vocalist Lucy Dhegrae, founder of the Resonant Bodies Festival, director/producer Jamil Jude, founder of The New Griots Festival, violinist and Fulbright Scholar Teagan Faran, who studies how music can strengthen community togetherness, and composer Frances Pollock, whose music examines social issues through collaboration outside traditional academic circles.
Emerging classical singers Rehanna Thelwell, Felicia Moore, and Anush Avetisyan, costume designer Sueann Leung, and DC Strings Artistic Director Andrew Lee will round out the first cohort, along with violinists Elena Urioste and Melissa White, whose company Intermission was founded to teach musicians yoga techniques to support the demanding physicality and emotional undertaking of performance.
At the conclusion of the mentorship season in May, one Lumos Fellow will be chosen by the Spotlight Advisory Board to receive the Hedwig Holbrook Prize, to include $5,000 and a website designed by Stewart’s PR firm, Verismo Communications.
“It’s my hope that this prize, named in honor of the late soprano Jennifer Holbrook, will represent a galvanizing force in one fellow’s life each season,” said Stewart. “I expect each of our Lumos Fellows to emerge from this experience with a clearer vision of the path of his or her personal mission, and a deeper well of fuel to get there.”
Though the organization’s day-to-day operations will be focused on individual mentorship, Turn The Spotlight leaders hope that their cumulative efforts will contribute to addressing inequity across sectors of the arts industry.
“The classical music industry continues to lag woefully behind when it comes to diversity, especially in leadership positions within larger-budget organizations,” said conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya, founder of the Refugee Orchestra Project and the only female Music Director in the top 50 opera companies in the United States. “Turn the Spotlight is providing the essential mentorship and support those from marginalized groups require in order to reach high-level career goals. I am thrilled to be part of this vital resource for deserving artists across the field.”
“The arts provide the prism through which we can first envision, and then build, a better and more just world,” added Camille Zamora, co-founder of Sing for Hope and a leading voice in the artist-as-citizen movement. “Turn The Spotlight is poised to do exactly what the name suggests: refocus the illuminating power of the arts.”