Join the North End Music & Performing Arts Center (NEMPAC) on Thursday, June 11 via Zoom from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. for a meaningful conversation and discussion on “Diversity and Leadership in the Arts.“
This workshop, part of NEMPAC’s “Ask an Expert Series,” will address the role diversity plays in our institutions and art fields in the City of Boston, and how it can help create new and exciting opportunities for growth in our communities and sources of inspiration.
The NEMPAC hosts, Heather Galligher (NEMPAC teaching artist) and Alexandra Dietrich (NEMPAC Opera Project Artistic Director), will address the panel in a Q&A format. They will ask each to share their personal and professional stories on how inclusion has helped foster their development.
Specifically, the panelists will address how they use their voices and influence to amplify the voices of communities marginalized for culture, gender, and orientation in the performance world across the genres of theatre, dance, musical theatre, classical music, and opera. They will express how they advocate for these programs using their leadership roles to strengthen their message and their work or company’s relevance, and the importance of how they serve their communities through inclusion, advocacy, programming, and diversity for their company at all levels, audience, and the arts at large.
Featuring guest panelists on June 11th, 2020:
Rachel Bertone – Rachel Bertone is an award-winning director/choreographer and a professor of theater and dance. Her work has been seen on stages both in New York and Boston, were critics, from The Wall Street Journal to The Boston Globe, have lauded her direction and choreography as “superb” and “ingenious.”
Michael Bobbit – the Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre, Mr. Bobbit is also an accomplished choreographer, playwright, eight times Helen Hayes award winner and graduate of the Harvard Business School. Having been a leader for numerous influential arts organizations, he has helped increase their audiences and organizational means.
Dr. Tifffany Chang – Taiwanese-American conductor Tiffany Chang cultivates an international reputation of exceptional versatility, vision, and integrity. Recipient of the 2020 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, Chang currently serves on the artist-faculties of Oberlin Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. She was featured in The Dallas Opera’s 2019 Hart Institute for Women Conductors and named the 2017 Winner of The American Prize in Opera Conducting. She served eight seasons as Music Director/Conductor for the North End Music and Performing Arts Center’s (NEMPAC) Opera Project in Boston.
Dr. Nicolas Dosman – Dr. Nicolás Alberto Dosman is an Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Southern Maine, School of Music. He has served as a clinician and conductor throughout New England, at National NAfME(National Association for Music Education) and ACDA(American Choral Directors Association) conferences, as well as international venues. He studied choral conducting with Dr. Dino Anagnost (Columbia University) and Drs. André Thomas and Kevin Fenton (Florida State University). He attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he received his B.M. His scholarly interests include: male participation in choral ensembles, music teacher preparation, urban school districts, and social justice.
Fred Van Ness – a talented opera singer and oratorio soloist who has called Boston his home for nearly a decade, Fred Van Ness is a graduate of Longy School of the arts, a frequent performer with Boston Lyric Opera and native of Louisiana.
Lidiya Yankovshaya – an acclaimed and accomplished conductor who is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Refugee Orchestra Project, “which proclaims the cultural and societal relevance of refugees through music.” As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, she has established the Vanguard Initiative, a three-pronged investment in new opera that includes a two-year residency for emerging opera composers. She is an alumna of Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and Marin Alsop’s Taki Concordia Fellowship, and a recipient of a 2018 Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award.
About the “Ask an Expert Series”
To have essential conversations around arts & culture during the time of COVID-19 and with respect to our social climate, NEMPAC founded the Ask an Expert workshop series. The forum includes meeting our acclaimed guest panelists and their work representing leadership in the Arts in theatre, music, and dance in Boston and across the nation. There will also be a Q&A format with our panelists for audience participation. Zoom log-in information is located here.
www.nempacboston.org | 617-227-2270 | info@nempacboston.org
