“The La Jolla Music Society’s board of directors announced Monday that it had selected Susan T. Danis as the organization’s new president and chief executive officer,” effective October 1, writes George Varga in Tuesday’s (7/23) San Diego Union Tribune. “She has spent the past six years as the CEO and executive director of Florida Grand Opera…. She replaces Kristin Lancino…. Her selection comes just eight months before next April’s opening of the nonprofit arts organization’s new La Jolla home, the $78.5 million Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.” Before heading Florida Grand Opera, Danis worked “in New York with people with physical and mental disabilities, and with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in San Francisco, where she was executive director of the dance company Voice The Movement…. [As] managing director of the Lake George Opera (now Opera Saratoga) … she erased a $450,000 debt and built a $3 million endowment. During her 13 years at Florida’s Sarasota Opera, she doubled its annual budget to more than $8 million…. [At] Florida Grand Opera, she secured the largest gift … in the organization’s history [and] developed award-winning education and outreach programs…. She expanded the size of the company’s Studio Artist Program by 30 percent.”
Posted July 25, 2018
