Steven Libman (born October 5, 1959) is a nationally recognized performing arts executive known for leading major orchestra, dance and theatre companies and performing arts centers with an emphasis on classical music and jazz. His career spans more than three decades and he has previously served as the Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer for the
Pittsburgh Ballet,
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.
History
La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...
and
The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts
The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts is 1,600-seat, concert hall located in Carmel, Indiana.
After years of planning, The Palladium, one of three venues that comprises the Center for the Performing Arts, opened on January 29, 2 ...
. He has also served as the chief advancement officer for the
Atlanta Ballet
Atlanta Ballet is a ballet company, located in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the longest continuously performing ballet company in the United States and the State Ballet of Georgia.
History
Atlanta Ballet was founded in 1929 by Dorothy Alexander as ...
. He is also a public speaker and was the co-host and co-founder of "
The Voice of the Performing Arts," a weekly public radio show devoted to the importance of
arts education. Currently, Libman is the President & Chief Executive Officer for the
Jacksonville Symphony and the president of The Libman Group, a consulting firm that works exclusively in the performing and
visual arts
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...
arena.
Early life
Libman was born on October 5, 1959, in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
. He is the son of Marilyn (deceased) and Herman Libman (deceased). He has a brother Scott.
Libman grew up in
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
and the family moved to
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when he was in the sixth grade, where they stayed for three years. Libman then moved back to Rhode Island, went to high school (Cranston High School East) and then
Rhode Island College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in
performing arts management in 1981.
Career
Early in Libman's career, he served as managing director of the Rev Theatre Company (formerly the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival) and the
Fulton Opera House before being named managing director of the
Pittsburgh Ballet, where he spent 17 years. While with the
Pittsburgh Ballet, Libman broke new ground in funder relations, raising more than $50 million. He developed ground breaking ballets set to jazz and the music of
Paul Simon,
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
,
Sting and
Bruce Springsteen. Libman also established tours to
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
,
Wolf Trap (Washington, D.C.), The
Hollywood Bowl and The
Joyce Theatre in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. When he left the ballet, he was the longest-serving arts executive in the city and one of the two longest-serving managing directors of major ballet companies in
North America.
From 2005 to 2008, Libman served as managing director and the chief administrative officer at the
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
winning
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.
History
La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...
. He ran a four-venue complex that produced over 300 performances per season, and produced 28 plays, including ten world premieres.
Libman was the founding president and CEO of
The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts
The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts is 1,600-seat, concert hall located in Carmel, Indiana.
After years of planning, The Palladium, one of three venues that comprises the Center for the Performing Arts, opened on January 29, 2 ...
in Carmel, Indiana, from 2009 to 2012. While there, he successfully planned and launched the first few seasons and produced two major opening night festival galas with:
Michael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein (born September 7, 1956) is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an archivist and interpreter for the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for cele ...
,
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen Botti ( ; born October 12, 1962) is an award-winning American trumpeter and composer.
In 2013, Botti won the Grammy Award in the Best Pop Instrumental Album category, for the album ''Impressions''.
He was also nominated in ...
,
Neil Sedaka
Neil Sedaka (; born March 13, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Since his music career began in 1957, he has sold millions of records worldwide and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collabo ...
,
Dionne Warwick,
David Hyde Pierce
David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is an American actor and director of stage, film and television. He starred as psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom ''Frasier'' from 1993 to 2004, and won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Scree ...
and dancers from
American Ballet Theatre. He also produced a
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
special with
Michael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein (born September 7, 1956) is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an archivist and interpreter for the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for cele ...
seen by 11 million viewers. The special titled "Michael Feinstein: The Sinatra Project" was nominated for Outstanding Music Direction at the
64th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards
The 64th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony was held on September 15 at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles and was televised September 22, 2012 on ReelzChannel. This is in conjunction with the annual Primetime Emmy Aw ...
.
From 2014 to 2020 Libman was the chief advancement officer for the
Atlanta Ballet
Atlanta Ballet is a ballet company, located in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the longest continuously performing ballet company in the United States and the State Ballet of Georgia.
History
Atlanta Ballet was founded in 1929 by Dorothy Alexander as ...
, raising over $35 million, including $5.5M for a new production of
The Nutcracker
''The Nutcracker'' ( rus, Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik, links=no ) is an 1892 two-act ballet (""; russian: балет-феерия, link=no, ), originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchai ...
.
He re-designed the entire development program and also managed the development and governance committees.
Libman has taught graduate courses in fundraising, leadership, HR and arts administration at the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
,
Carnegie Mellon University,
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
and
Syracuse University. Libman is president and CEO for the
Jacksonville Symphony and president of The Libman Group, a consulting practice specializing in the
Performing Arts. He is also the former co-host of "
The Voice of the Performing Arts" radio show. The Voice of the Performing Arts ran from 2013 to 2016, interviewed over 500 guests through 166 shows for a weekly audience of up to 10,000. The show aired weekly on public radio station
WICR
WICR (88.7 FM broadcasting, FM) is a public radio, public radio station in Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana. It is owned by the University of Indianapolis and broadcasts a non-commercial jazz and classical music radio format. The license is h ...
88.7 at the
University of Indianapolis
The University of Indianapolis (UIndy) is a private United Methodist Church-affiliated university in Indianapolis, Indiana. It offers Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees. It was founded in 1902 as Indiana Central University and ...
and was podcast in iTunes.
Awards
In 2000 Libman was awarded as an Outstanding Alumnus in the Arts by
Rhode Island College. Libman also has certificates in Non-profit Management and Strategic Planning from the
Harvard Business School and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
In 2008 Libman was awarded a Leadership Advancement Award by the
Irvine Foundation. He has served on the boards of the following organizations: Dance/USA, La Jolla Country Day School, City National Bank Advisory Board, and the AGMA Retirement and Health Funds.
Personal life
Libman has a daughter Tracy and two grandchildren. Libman is married to Carol Killworth and was married to Keitha Libman from 1980 to 2013.
References
External links
The Libman Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Libman, Steven
American art educators
1959 births
Living people
Rhode Island College alumni