Speakers

Marin Alsop

(she/her)

Conductor and Educator, TACF

Speaking at Opening Session and Gold Baton Award

Jessica Rivero Altarriba

(she/her)

Assistant Conductor, Utah Symphony | Utah Opera

Speaking at Opening Session and Gold Baton Award

Steven Brosvik

(he/him)

President & CEO, The O.C. Tanner Chair, Utah Symphony | Utah Opera

Speaking at Opening Session and Gold Baton Award

Alan Mason

(he/him)

Board Chair, League of American Orchestras

Speaking at Closing Luncheon and Annual Meeting

Quinn Mason

Composer/Conductor, Masonian Music

Speaking at Opening Session and Gold Baton Award

Simon Woods

(he/him)

President and CEO, League of American Orchestras

Speaking at Opening Session and Gold Baton Award and Closing Luncheon and Annual Meeting

Evin Blomberg

(she/her)

Musician, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Speaking at Organizational Success Through Musician Engagement

Award-winning violinist Evin Blomberg currently plays in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Pops and is the Founder of the Soli Music Society. Evin is a graduate of The Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and earned her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York as a student in the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program. Prior to joining the CSO, Evin lived in London, England where she regularly performed in the violin sections of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In addition to her performance career, Evin seeks to find ways to give back to her community and spark a passion for music and the arts in others.

Connect with Evin on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X

Andrew Bradford

(he/him)

President & CEO, Santa Rosa Symphony

Speaking at From the Ground Up, Reimagining and Redefining the Perfect Volunteer Group

J. Andrew Bradford joined the Santa Rosa Symphony as President & CEO in July 2023. Previously, Bradford was Executive Director of Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, where he increased enrollment to a record 440+ choristers, achieved consecutive budget surpluses, and won a Grammy Award. Bradford has also served as Executive Director of the Colorado Music Festival & Center for Musical Arts and Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, and worked in fundraising, marketing, and operations for the Kennedy Center, National Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, and Houston Symphony.

Originally from New York City, Bradford was trained as a cellist and received his bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, where he was recipient of a graduate fellowship and studied music and management. Bradford is also a graduate of the former Arts Management Fellowship program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn

Lydia Connolly

(she/her)

Independent Consultant and Mentor; Former Senior Director and Head of Artist Management, HarrisonParrott

Speaking at Working in Harmony: A Common Vision for Artist Managers and Artistic Planners

Board director with international arts management company HarrisonParrott for over thirty years, Lydia now works as an independent consultant focused on mentoring artists and artist managers. At HP, Lydia represented a prestigious roster of instrumentalists, conductors, and composers worldwide and headed up the artist management department. She was Head of Inclusion and Access with HP and remains a trustee of the HarrisonParrott Foundation.

Lydia was the first woman to read undergraduate Music at New College, Oxford and is a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (violin). She is alumna of the Strategic Leadership Programme at Saïd Business School Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Lydia has served on the board of the International Artist Managers’ Association as well as IAMA’s Broadcasting and Media Committee. She is regularly invited to speak at industry conferences and has experience as an international competition juror as well as leading seminars and workshops.

Roger Gault

(he/him)

Board Chairman, Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Speaking at From the Ground Up, Reimagining and Redefining the Perfect Volunteer Group

Roger Gault has developed a wide variety of projects including office, retail, industrial, hotel, multifamily and single-family residential and land development. He handles land acquisition, partnership structure, debt and equity structure, leasing, and marketing. In addition to developing projects for his own account, Roger also provides real estate consulting and advisement services. These services include project planning, budgeting, marketing, and project management for third-party owners of development and investment properties. Prior to founding Gault Company, Roger served as an officer for a variety of companies while developing his own projects. His last corporate endeavor prior to forming Gault Company was as a partner of Koll Development Company (KDC), where he was involved in the development of corporate headquarters for Fortune 500 companies. He was responsible for the development of corporate campuses for companies such as Omnicom, Rapp Collins Worldwide, Citizens Communications, and Nokia.

Connect with Roger on LinkedIn

Assal Habibi

(she/her)

Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Southern California

Speaking at Music and Mind: A Panel Discussion

Assal Habibi is an Associate Research Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Center for Music, Brain, and Society at the University of Southern California. Her interdisciplinary research explores the impact of the arts, with a particular focus on music, on health and human development. She investigates how innate biological factors and experiential learning shape the development of cognitive, emotional, and social abilities across the lifespan. She has been a principal investigator on several innovative studies, including projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). An expert in electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods, her work extensively employs longitudinal and cross-sectional models to examine the effects of integrating music-based activities into school curricula and elder care, especially for those from underserved communities. Her research not only highlights the essential role of the arts in education but also explores the therapeutic potential of music for individuals across different age groups, including the elderly.

Janet Newcomb

(she/her)

Executive Director, National Coalition for Arts' Preparedness & Emergency Response (NCAPER)

Speaking at Disaster Preparation and Recovery

Jan Newcomb, Executive Director of NCAPER, the National Coalition for Arts Preparedness & Emergency Response, and the Performing Arts Coordinator for the Performing Arts Readiness project at Lyrasis, serves as Professor, Volunteer Title Series at the University of Kentucky. During her career Jan directed ten arts organizations including three orchestras: Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes. She was the SC Arts Commission Grants Director and taught at the University of Buffalo, USC, and NYIT in Manhattan. In 2009, Jan began consulting on leadership transition and development; her clients included Long Wharf Theatre, Lexington Philharmonic, and Miami Summer Music Festival. Jan received the 2009 Community Achievement Award from Mayor Joseph Riley, Charleston, SC and in 2017, she received the Lifetime Service Award from The ARTS, Corning, NY. She holds a BA in Music, Hood College and, MA in modern dance from George Washington University.

Jessica Phillips

(she/her)

Musician and Educator, Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School

Speaking at Embedding Culture Change Through Design Thinking Principles

Jessica Phillips is an experienced performer and dedicated educator. A member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra clarinet section since 2001, she also served as Chair of the Met Orchestra Committee and led two contract negotiations in 2014 and 2018, where she pioneered collaborative, often paradigm-shifting creative solutions to complex issues.

Jessica is on the graduate studies faculties of The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and the Concert Artist Guild’s Community Impact Project Incubator. She has been a guest speaker and panelist at Sphinx, the League of American Orchestras conference and Essentials of Orchestra Management, Lincoln Center’s Curriculum on Change, and OPERA America’s Leadership Intensive.

Jessica received her MBA in Arts Innovation & Entrepreneurship from the Global Leaders Institute and graduated cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University. She holds certificates in Nonprofit Arts Management from NYU, Labor Relations from Cornell, Negotiation and Leadership from Harvard Law School, and is an alumna of the League’s Essentials of Orchestra Management and OPERA America’s Leadership Intensive.

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn and Instagram

Indre Viskontas

(she/her)

Associate Professor, University of San Francisco

Speaking at Music and Mind: A Panel Discussion

Dr. Indre Viskontas is a neuroscientist, musician, and science communicator across all mediums. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology and director of the Creative Brain Lab at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Viskontas has published more than 50 original papers and chapters related to the neural basis of memory and creativity and is currently the President of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the NeuroArts Blueprint and the Director of Communications for the Sound Health Network, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts. She has written and filmed 98 lectures for The Great Courses, hosted several TV shows and more than 450 podcast episodes across four different podcasts with more than 15 million downloads, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS NewsHour, and major radio stations across the US. Her first book How Music Can Make You Better, was published by Chronicle. She is also an accomplished opera singer and stage director, and Chief Science Officer at Reverberation, a media studio and tech company co-founded by Peter Gabriel, devoted to helping everyone leverage music to improve their lives.

Connect with Indre on LinkedIn and Instagram

Theodore Wiprud

(he/him)

Composer and Consultant

Speaking at Orchestras as Partners in Community Health and Wellness

Theodore Wiprud is a composer and consultant in the arts and education, based in New York City. As Vice President, Education, at the New York Philharmonic from 2004 to 2018, he created and hosted the iconic Young People’s Concerts and directed a wide array of school and community programs. He has held similar posts at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra, and created educational programming for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In the 1990s, he directed grantmaking programs at Meet The Composer (now New Music USA).

Currently, Mr. Wiprud researches and writes on emerging trends among US orchestras for the League of American Orchestras. He is lead mentor for the South Dakota Symphony’s Music Composition Academies, giving teens from Indigenous communities the chance to compose original music for professional musicians. His multimedia violin concerto “on the brink,” about fighting climate despair, premiered in South Dakota in January.

Connect with Theodore on LinkedIn