Words of Inspiration To Power 2025

Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer) and “the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony” (LA Review of Books), Aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles managing millions in revenue at major institutions including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As chief executive of the California Symphony, Bergauer propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadrupled the donor base.

Bergauer helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money, and grow the base of fans and supporters. Her ability to cast and communicate vision moves large teams forward and brings stakeholders together, earning “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them” (San Francisco Classical Voice). With a track record for strategically increasing revenue and relevance, leveraging digital content and technology, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion on stage and off, Bergauer sees a better way forward for classical music and knows how to achieve it. 

Aubrey’s first book, Run It Like A Business, published in February 2024.

A graduate of Rice University, her work and leadership has been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, Adobe’s Magento, universities, and industry conferences in the U.S. and abroad.

Before joining the staff at Orlando REP, Chris had a busy career all over the United States. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UCF in 2005 and immediately after was accepted into the prestigious Yale School of Drama and graduated from Yale University with a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Technical Design and Production. Throughout his schooling, Chris held positions at the Utah Shakespearean Festival and was the Production Supervisor for the New York Summer Play Festival. At Yale, Chris worked at the renowned Yale Repertory Theater on many productions and was schooled in everything from structural engineering and automation to production and theatre management. After Yale, Chris went to work for one of the largest Broadway Scene Shops, Hudson Scenic Studio, and worked in the Automation department. In 2009, Chris was a supervisor in the construction of the NYC Times Square Ball, which is the first ball to reside in Times Square year round. After all that, Chris has spent the last 7 years as the General and Production Manager at Orlando Family Stage and still strongly believes that Orlando Family Stage is the most fulfilling position he has held in his career.

Elizabeth Yntema is the President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for WTTW/WFMT. Liza graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 and is a 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she was awarded the Jane L. Mixer Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Ms. Yntema is a past member of numerous organizations in the Chicagoland area, including the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Women’s Bar Association, Trust for Public Land in Illinois, Winnetka Board of the Northwestern Settlement House, the Children’s Home and Aid Society, and the Junior League of Chicago, where she was named as Volunteer of the Year for her work advocating for homeless women and children.

Named to the final full year training cohort of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) in 2018, Liza spent a year honing her skills as part of “the next generation of strategic philanthropists.” TPW is a global network of over 450 selected philanthropists, from 26 countries.

Liza and Dance Data Project® have been featured in the book Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Lisa DeFrank-Cole, Professor and Director of Leadership Studies at West Virginia University and Sherylle J. Tan, Ph. D. a developmental psychologist and Director of Internships and KLI Research at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College.  Ms. Yntema has also been awarded the inaugural Top Tier Feminist Giver Award by Philanthropy Women in March of 2021.

Ms. Yntema was recently selected for the first national cohort of Chief, a global network of women founders and C-Suite executives. In June 2022, she was also honored to be selected as a lifetime Honorary Member of Corps De Ballet.

DDP’s ground breaking work is featured in the book Turning Pointe: How A New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet From Itself, published in May 2021.

After hearing Scheherazade at an early age, Holly Mulcahy fell in love with the violin and knew it would be her future. Since then, she has won multiple positions in symphonic orchestras across the country while maintaining a robust solo career and a small non-profit organization.

Holly is currently serving as concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Chattanooga Symphony & Opera. In addition to those leadership roles, she also serves as Wichita Symphony’s Partner for Audience Engagement; a position dedicated to building meaningful relationships with audiences by breaking down stereotypical barriers.

Holly began developing her leadership skills at the renowned Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University with former Baltimore Symphony concertmaster Herbert Greenberg. In recent seasons she has enjoyed serving as traveling concertmaster for Emmy Award winner George Daugherty’s Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, and as guest concertmaster for the Columbus Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and a one-year appointment as interim concertmaster for Orchestra Iowa.

As an in-demand performer, Holly balances her orchestral duties with numerous concerto performances across the country. Passionate about performing living American composers’ works, Holly has been featured as soloist for concertos by Jennifer Higdon, Jim Stephenson, Philip Glass, and now a concerto by Hollywood film composer, George S. Clinton.

This new concerto by George S. Clinton, The Rose of Sonora: a violin concerto in five scenes, is inspired by true stories about the lives of legendary women in the Old West and takes the listener on an epic western adventure of love, loss, and revenge. Booked coast to coast, immediately after the world premiere, Mulcahy and Clinton have received rave reviews and a solid fan following who travel to each performance.

Believing in music as a healing and coping source, Holly founded Arts Capacity, a charitable 501(c)3 which focuses on bringing live chamber music, art, artists, and composers to prisons. Arts Capacity addresses many emotional and character-building issues people face as they prepare for release into society.

In addition to an active performing career, Holly is the author of Neo Classical, a monthly column on the future of classical music. On days off, Holly maintains a reputation for planning and hosting exquisite gourmet parties in her Chicago home.

Holly performs on a 1917 Giovanni Cavani violin, previously owned by the late renowned soloist Eugene Fodor, and a bespoke bow made by award-winning master bow maker, Douglas Raguse.

Visit HollyMulcahy.com for more information.

Isabelle Ramey, originally from Pittsburgh, PA, is a graduate of Butler University with a BFA in Dance Performance and BS in Mathematics. At Butler, Isabelle earned the Eileen Poston Dance Scholarship for outstanding performance, the Amos Carpenter Memorial Award for excellence in mathematics, and joined Phi Beta Kappa. Since graduation, Isabelle has danced professionally with Ballet Austin, Shana Simmons Dance, and Deos Contemporary Ballet, where she is currently both Company Dancer and Marketing Manager. Isabelle began working with Dance Data Project® in May of 2021.

Jenna Magrath (she/her) is a dance researcher, artist, and educator. She holds a BA in Dance and a BKin (Hons) in Kinesiology from the University of Calgary. In addition to working with DDP, Jenna researches dance for health promotion amongst various populations and socio-cultural perspectives on dance-related pain and injury. Her research has received awards from the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science and Healthy Dancer Canada. Jenna is also a company member with METHOD Dance Society; an organization that brings contemporary dance to Northern British Columbia, Canada. Jenna is passionate about advocating for and creating safe and equitable dancing spaces.

John Orr is the Executive Director of Art-Reach in Philadelphia. Under his leadership, Art-Reach has experienced unprecedented growth in terms of programmatic impact and revenue. During his tenure, Art-Reach has been recognized with the PNC Arts Alive Award for Arts Innovation in Honor of Peggy Amsterdam; Arts and Culture Award from the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations; Philebrity Nonprofit of the Year Award, the Impact100 Philadelphia Award, and the Designing Leadership Award. In 2018, Orr was appointed by the Mayor of Philadelphia to serve on the Mayor’s Commission on People with Disabilities. Additionally, Orr was one of 100 people in the country identified by TIAA as a Difference Maker 100 in their 2018 national competition. Other national recognition includes the Ovation Stand for the Arts Award (2019), and the Leadership Exchange for Art and Disability Community Asset Award (2019). Previously, Orr worked with the Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences, Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania, Fleisher Art Memorial, and the Science History Institute. Orr is a past-President and former board member of the Museum Council of Greater Philadelphia. A Philadelphia native, Orr is committed to making his city one of the most accessible arts cities in the country.

Jonathan Stafford is the Artistic Director of New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet. A former NYCB Principal Dancer, he retired from performing in May 2014 and was named one of NYCB’s Ballet Masters. In December 2017, he was appointed to lead NYCB’s interim artistic team and in February 2019, he was named Artistic Director of NYCB and SAB.

During his performing career with NYCB, Stafford performed an extensive repertory of leading roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, and Christopher Wheeldon, and also originated featured roles in works by Mauro Bigonzetti and Alexei Ratmansky.

As an educator, Stafford served as a member of SAB’s guest faculty beginning in 2006 and joined the School’s permanent faculty in 2007. In 2015, he was named SAB’s first-ever Professional Placement Manager, a role created to assist students with the transition into their professional careers. Stafford also spearheaded a mentorship program which partners current NYCB dancers with new apprentices from SAB to help guide them through their first year with the Company. He graduated summa cum laude from the Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies with a B.A. in Organizational Leadership.

Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Stafford studied at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet before first entering SAB in the summer of 1996. Named an NYCB apprentice in October 1998, Stafford joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in February 1999. He was promoted to the rank of Soloist in March of 2006 and became a Principal Dancer in May 2007.

A proud native of Memphis, TN, Loki Karuna (formerly Garrett McQueen) is a bassoonist who has performed with ensembles including the South Arkansas Symphony, Jackson Symphony, American Youth Symphony, Memphis Repertory Orchestra, the Eroica Ensemble, and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Southeast Symphony, the Artosphere and Gateways Festival Orchestras, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Loki has been featured as both a performer and host on “Performance Today” and “Music Through the Night” from American Public Media, and has appeared in a wide array of television programs, including Oxygen’s “Snapped: Killer Couples”, TV One’s “Fatal Attraction”, and Fox’s “Glee”.

In addition to remaining active in performance spaces, Loki is the host and producer of local and nationally-syndicated radio programs including “The Sound of 13”, “Noteworthy”, “Gateways Radio”, and “The Sounds of Kwanzaa”. Away from the airwaves, Loki offers guest lectures, presentations, and trainings at the intersections of race, culture, Black liberation, and classical music, with past collaborators including the Gateways Music Festival, the Sphinx Organization, the Kennedy Center, the Apollo Theater, Black Music Experience, the Minnesota Music Teachers Association, New Music Gathering, and the MacPhail Center for Music. In the press, Loki has been noted as not only a “classical agitator”, but also “a Black talent in public media that you may not know, but should”. In 2021, the New York Times noted his weekly podcast, TRILLOQUY, as a standout and one that is “required listening for industry leaders and listeners alike.”

Loki holds a Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance from the University of Memphis, where he studied with Lecolion Washington, and a Master of Music in Bassoon Performance from the University of Southern California, where he studied with Judith Farmer. Alongside working as a performer, the Executive Producer and co-host of the TRILLOQUY podcast and President of TrillWerks Media, Loki is the Director of Artist Equity for the American Composers Orchestra. He serves on the board of directors for the American Composers Forum, the Beethoven Festival Orchestra, Lyrica Baroque, and the Cedar Cultural Center, and maintains leadership and artistic advisory positions with the Black Opera Alliance, the Gateways Music Festival, and the Lakes Area Music Festival.

Loki is a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, supporting the Bridgeview district of Soka Gakkai International, and spends his free time studying Eastern philosophy, eating plant-based cuisine, and enjoying life with his partner, Dell.

Monica Holt, an arts executive based in Washington, DC, has held a series of progressive roles at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since 2009. Currently, as the Senior Vice President of Artistic Planning, she provides oversight and support to build focus, direction, and collective inspiration across the Kennedy Center artistic teams including Theater, Social Impact, International Programming, Dance, Jazz, Classical New Music, Comedy, Hip Hop Culture, Contemporary Music, and Broadcast Media, as well as overseeing the Production division and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.

In her prior role as Senior Director of Artistic Strategy and Operations, Monica developed seasonal and long-term strategic planning at the Center and implemented Center-wide systems and processes to manage a balanced portfolio of programs across the building. Monica has also previously held the position of Director of Theater Producing and Programming, where she managed the operations and administration of the $50M+ Theater season and served as the General Manger for all Kennedy Center theatrical productions.

Before moving to the Artistic Planning division, she was the Kennedy Center’s Director of Marketing, overseeing marketing and sales strategy, revenue forecasting, pricing and inventory management, digital marketing and social media, and customer research for the Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, and the National Symphony Orchestra. Monica began her career in digital and social media and served as a leader in implementing a digital-first strategy Center-wide.

Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface and the President of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. He has held fellowships with Dance/USA, Drexel University, Jacob’s Pillow, Harvard University, the Manhattan School of Music, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, NYU, and the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. As a writer, he is the author of Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact and Banishing Orientalism, and has served as the Executive Editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, Dance Australia, and the Huffington Post, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Dance Magazine. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance. He was a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Dance at Carleton College, and was named a Next 50 Arts Leader by the Kennedy Center. His recent projects include directing “Madama Butterfly” for Boston Lyric Opera (garnering “Best of 2023” in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Broadway World), and staging a newly reimagined “La Bayadere” for Indiana University. His dances are currently in the repertory at Ballet West and Oakland Ballet.

Priya Iyer Doshi spent four years serving on the consulting team at Capacity Interactive and in July 2021 returned to CI in the role of President. Prior to CI, she worked in marketing and sales on Broadway. In 2019, she moved from NYC to Southern California where she lead the client services team at a full-service creative agency. Outside of work, Priya enjoys soaking up the sun, dancing, exercising, spending time with friends and family, traveling with her partner Neil, cuddling with her dog Bibo, and taking quiet time to unwind and meditate.

Rachel Hagemeier became the President & CEO of the Canton Symphony Orchestra in October 2022. From 2019-2022, she served as the CSO Manager of Education and Community Engagement and expanded educational and community engagement programming despite a global pandemic. She is the producer and co-host of the podcast Orchestrating Change, a podcast dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of orchestral music. In 2019, Rachel was a member of the Essentials of Orchestra Management program through the League of American Orchestras where she studied with industry professionals for two weeks in Los Angeles, California. In Canton, she is a member of the board of directors for Lighthouse Ministries and participates in Leadership Stark County where she is a 2019 Spotlight Program and 2020-2021 Signature Program graduate. Rachel graduated from Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music with degrees in Bassoon Performance and Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. Growing up in Edmond, Oklahoma, she began studying the bassoon at the age of 11 under Dr. Lori Wooden. In college, she studied bassoon under Cleveland Orchestra members Phil Austin and Jonathan Sherwin. Rachel is a member of OMEA (Ohio Music Educators Association) and NAfME (National Association for Music Education) and runs a bassoon studio out of her home. She is happy to call Canton, Ohio her home and looks forward to serving the Canton Symphony Orchestra for years to come.

Rachel Karten (she/her) is a social media consultant and author of the industry newsletter Link in Bio. She has worked in social media for over 10 years and previously led the social media team at Bon Appétit and Epicurious. With Karten at the helm the social team garnered much praise and won both a social Webby Award and a prestigious National Magazine Award for best social. Since leaving Condé Nast in 2020, Karten has been consulting on social media strategies for brands like CAVA, west elm, and many more. Her newsletter Link in Bio has over 60,000 subscribers and is a top 10 business newsletter on Substack.