Rozella Floranz Kennedy named Executive Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players are pleased to announce the appointment of Rozella Floranz Kennedy as Executive Director, effective July 16, 2012.
 
May 31, 2012 - PRLog -- The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players are pleased to announce the appointment of Rozella Floranz Kennedy as Executive Director, effective July 16, 2012.  She replaces Carrie Blanding, who joined the organization in 2007 and was promoted to Executive Director in April 2010.  Ms. Blanding will step down on June 15, 2012.

Rozella has over 25 years of experience in nonprofit management, ranging from arts and cultural organizations to the ACLU.  She began her career in media, working in editorial management roles at Paris Passion magazine, Mothering magazine, Oxygen.com, Time Inc., and other media institutions.  She has helped establish three nonprofit organizations in New Mexico, where she lived for the last 12 years: the NM Centennial Commemoration, Creative Santa Fe, and the nationally acclaimed Santa Fe New Music (SFNM).  

Rozella co-founded SFNM and helped lead the organization to many accolades, including 100 performances, nine major commissions, 39 world premieres, five American premieres, and the 2010 Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.  Most recently, Rozella served as business development director for a national diversity organization providing opportunities to Native American students.  An alumna of New York’s Brearley School, she holds degrees from Tufts University and the Université de Paris, Sorbonne.  She is a published essayist.  She and her husband, the composer and conductor John Kennedy, have two daughters and two dogs.

“I am honored to receive the trust of this internationally recognized new music organization, and look forward to helping steward the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players over the coming years,” says Ms. Kennedy. “New music is an important expression of and response to our contemporary life and times.  I am excited to be working with Steven Schick, the Players, the Board, staff, and the community at large as we create and share new opportunities for enjoying this vital art form together.”

“We are delighted that Rozie has joined our leadership team,” commented Board President Richard Lee.  “She combines significant executive experience with demonstrated commitment to the presentation of new music.  She will be a vital presence in the Bay Area musical scene.”

Artistic Director Steven Schick adds, “I am thrilled that Rozie will be joining us as Executive Director.  She’ll bring tons of administrative excellence, but beyond that she has a real passion to wed the music we believe in to the community we live in.  It’s going to be very exciting!”

ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE
Described by San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman as “the area’s premier new music ensemble,” the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players are a group of highly skilled musicians led by Artistic Director Steven Schick.  A ten-time winner of the national ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, the ensemble has toured widely throughout California with performances on such prestigious concert series as the Ojai Festival, Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts, San Francisco Performances, Cal Performances, the Stern Grove Festival, the Morrison Artists Series at San Francisco State University, and the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento. The ensemble made its European debut at the Cheltenham Festival in 1986, and in 2009 performed in Nice, France for the 30th anniversary season of the prestigious MANCA new music festival.

ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Lauded as a “brilliant” conductor by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times, Steven Schick has spent the last thirty years championing contemporary percussion music as a conductor, performer, and teacher.  He has commissioned and premiered more than one hundred new works by composers as varied as Brian Ferneyhough, David Lang, and Iannis Xenakis.  He is the founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group red fish blue fish, the Music Director and conductor of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, and the first-ever Artist in Residence with New York’s International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).  In addition to his work as a conductor and performer, Schick nurtures the next generation of artists as Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego, where he was honored with the UCSD Chancellor's Associates Faculty Excellence Award for 2011-2012.
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