“Audrey Baird loved music. She earned a degree in music education, studied flute, piano and dance as a kid and later taught piano lessons,” writes Meg Jones in Tuesday’s (11/28) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “She began volunteering with the new Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and never really stopped, eventually dedicating decades of her life to the symphony as well as … other [Milwaukee] arts organizations…. Baird … died Nov. 22… Starting in 1958 as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League’s ticket drive chairwoman in Wauwatosa, Baird volunteered throughout the 1960s and ’70s before joining the orchestra’s administrative staff in 1981 as director of audience development…. She served on the League of American Orchestras board, which gave her its Golden Baton award in 1996 for her service to symphonies in the U.S.” At the League, Baird also served as president of the Volunteer Council, and the Audrey Baird Audience Development Award for the most creative, successful audience development and/or ticket-sales projects is named in her honor. Milwaukee Symphony President and Executive Director Mark Niehaus said, “There was a point in the orchestra’s history where volunteers were responsible for selling all the tickets and raising most of the philanthropy. Audrey was at the forefront of that.”
Posted November 30, 2017
