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Brunswick Music Festival Welcomes New Executive Director Katherine Lehman

Brunswick Music Festival Welcomes

New Executive Director Katherine Lehman

BRUNSWICK, ME — The Bowdoin International Music Festival is announcing Katherine Lehman as the new Executive Director. For the past six years Katherine has served as the Director of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival (SSMF), a teaching festival held on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She has a long record of successful and innovative leadership in an organization remarkably similar to Bowdoin’s Festival.

“Katie not only understands how to lead the operational support systems, she also understands the musical soul of the festival,” Rol Fessenden, Chairman of the Board of Trustees says. “We feel incredibly fortunate to have her come here to be our Executive Director.” Following Katherine’s appointment as SSMF Director in 2010 she led the Festival out of a decade of artistic and financial distress to fiscal security, a greater quality and diversity of student body than ever before, and ultimately to national recognition. During her first year as Director SSMF went from a $150,000 operating deficit to an $80,000 surplus. She has since increased student enrollment to 200, nearly tripled the annual operating budget, expanded student scholarships, and raised the caliber of student. She has also demonstrated an innovative ability to connect the music of the Festival with various communities in new and effective ways.

Katherine is an accomplished violinist, a member of the music faculty at the University of the South, and an avid advocate for chamber music and the mentoring of young musicians. Her principal focus as Director was to tap into the creativity of talented faculty and students and provide the resources and structures that enable them to flourish. She has the potential to connect the artistic with the operational aspects of Bowdoin International Music Festival.

Katherine has spent time with David Ying and Phillip Ying, the Festival’s Artistic Directors. They are particularly excited about her interest in connecting music with the community and believe that her deep personal knowledge of, and passion for, music will be a valuable asset as the Festival moves into the future.

“It is an honor to be given the opportunity to lead Bowdoin International Music Festival, one of the nation's preeminent music festivals and to collaborate with Artistic Directors David Ying and Phillip Ying,” says Katherine. “With its rich history and the extraordinary support of its community, the Bowdoin Festival will continue to play a vital role in the future of chamber music and in the lives of its students. I am tremendously excited to be part of this outstanding program.”

Katherine studied music at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Kansas (BA—Violin Performance, Phi Beta Kappa), and Northwestern University (Master of Music—Performer’s Certificate). She previously served as a member of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. 

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