NEW YEAR, NEW LEADERS, NEW VISIONS BY LIBBY SLATE

Los Angeles performing-arts companies and venues welcome new leadership.

SCOTT ALTMAN OFFICIALLY started work as president and CEO of the Los Angeles Master Chorale on Jan. 2. He’s one of a cadre of arts leaders recently signed on to head various Southern California performing arts companies and venues.

Unofficially, Altman could say he’s been gathering experience for the role since he was 12 years old, first as a middle-school choral singer on Long Island and then in high school, when his choir competed at an international festival in Vienna and placed second.

“My love, my passion, the deepest earliest memories I have of the transcendent power of singing and particularly, singing as one voice, all starts as a boy,” says Altman, who later performed as an opera singer for 20 years, cofounded an opera company and eventually moved into administration, most recently serving seven years as president and CEO of the Cincinnati Ballet.

“With the Master Chorale, I am filled with joy,” Altman says. “And I am so overwhelmed with excitement about what the future holds for the Chorale.”

These new leaders—Altman, Andrew Brown at the Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Robert van Leer at the Wallis in Beverly Hills, Edgar Miramontes at CAP UCLA and Susan Miller Kotses at the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus—all bring creativity, visionary thinking and insights gleaned as performers themselves.

Also on their respective resumes: business acumen for the not-so-artistic tasks of budget balancing and fundraising.

During Altman’s Cincinnati tenure, the ballet company more than tripled its financial assets, enjoyed record ticket sales and expanded its educational and community programs.

Here, he wants to increase local audiences but also let the world know of the ensemble’s virtuosity.

“The chorale needs to be shouting from the rooftops how tremendous the artistry is, and the impact of the organization,” Altman enthuses. “That’s going to take some energy and a lot of vigorous branding and press and story-making. But I think it’s the top next priority, to get us more in the mix of conversations nationally and internationally.”

He’d also like to end the misconception that choral singers just stand and sing, building on previous programs combining song with dance or other dynamic movement.

ANDREW BROWN ALSO knows something about the power of the voice.

Prior to starting work as CEO of the Pasadena Symphony and Pops in November, he spent five years as CEO of the Pacific Chorale in Costa Mesa and, before that, rose to chief operating officer of the L.A. Master Chorale, where he’d been a singer.

The Pacific Chorale won a Grammy Award during his tenure; he produced several large-scale events and performances for the Master Chorale.

“I see nothing but opportunity right now,” Brown says of his new ensembles in Pasadena, which also include the city’s Youth Symphony Orchestras; he’d like to institute more crossover among audiences for the symphony, pops and youth groups. “The fact that any arts organization [still exists] on this side of the pandemic is really heartening.”

Regarding the Pasadena Symphony’s search for a new music director, he says, “There are some really viable candidates that would bring a new artistic vision and new growth to the organization. We’re looking for somebody with a strong foundation in the classics, but who also has an eye on new works, new voices and new composers ... that represent the audiences we want to come.”

Brown views his artistic directors as partners, and his staff as part of a team.

“You have to have that trust, and that idyllic pragmatism” when it comes to considering projects, he believes. “’Let’s figure that out. Wouldn’t that be cool if …?’ And then, ‘Yeah, we could do that.’ It’s exciting to dream big.”

ROBERT VAN LEER also feels, as the saying goes, that teamwork makes the dream work.

Van Leer started in April as executive director and CEO of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. He’d served as senior vice president of artistic planning at the Kennedy Center in New York for seven years and previously held positions in London, the Netherlands and at Lincoln Center.

Programming is very much a collaborative process, van Leer notes, and his international experience provides a broader context in considering offerings. But, he says, “Part of the reason I’m drawn to Los Angeles is that so many institutions think about a global context even if they haven’t worked internationally. There is an international vision here.”

The former singer and actor wants to explore crossovers between performing mediums and would like to establish programming partnerships with organizations across the city, not only those in the arts, but educational, leadership and community enterprises as well.

Conversely, he’s looking into how best to serve the Wallis’ local community, establishing the arts center as a neighborhood gathering place. And of course he wants to provide programming that will draw more people.

“It’s really about that three-dimensional model, how we make that very special and complex in the best possible way,” van Leer says. “We want to provide as many access points and engagement points to the public as we possibly can.”

EDGAR MIRAMONTES, new executive and artistic director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) in Westwood, also has the city’s global perspective on his mind.

Miramontes came to Los Angeles from Mexico as a child and later attended UCLA. He reported to work at his alma mater in

August; he’d left a 10-year tenure at REDCAT downtown, serving since 2019 as its deputy executive director and curator.

Miramontes oversees programming at three venues, Royce Hall at UCLA, the Theatre at Ace Hotel downtown—which is soon re-branding to a new name—and the new UCLA Nimoy Theater in Westwood. The first two are partnerships; the Nimoy is under CAP UCLA’s control.

“I’m interested in working with local, national and international artists,” says Miramontes, who has danced with a Middle Eastern dance troupe. “We’re all interconnected.”

Miramontes would like to “gather, introduce and support visionary artists and practitioners [who] can reshape cultural production and practice and provide insight into an experience other than our own.” Included would be both marginalized artists and those using technology in new ways.

Having immigrated here himself, he says heading CAP UCLA “is an important and honorable position to hold, and I’m super thrilled of the potential to have my lived experience speak to the kinds of programs that will happen. I’m excited to think about it.”

SUSAN MILLER KOTSES, the newest member of the new-arts-leaders club, begins her position as executive director of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus in February. She served as the Pacific Symphony’s vice president of education and community engagement in Irvine since 2015. Kotses is also a longtime professional singer and voice teacher, and a cantorial soloist at a temple in Laguna Woods.

“When I applied for the position,” Kotses says, “the job posting stated that the vision was of an organization that truly represented all of Los Angeles,” with a new partnership soon to be announced.

“Building partnerships has been central to the work I do,” Kotses says. “Engagement with community partners has been central, too—engagement being a two-way process. We each bring something to the table. It’s a real exchange of ideas: Let’s build something together, a true co-creation.”

To represent diverse L.A., Kotses plans to continue what has worked so well previously: establishing collaborations with organizations that have various cultural traditions and/or leadership of color.

“It’s my honor and my privilege to have that opportunity to learn and grow from these partnerships,” she says. “Connecting with geographically, socioeconomically, ethnically and racially diverse communities is the way forward.”