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The Shuffle: Comings and goings in the arts ’22
Looking back at the changing people, places and landscape of the past year
Gallo
A Staff Conductor with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Conductor with the Louisiana Philharmonic and with Opera Orlando, Chelsea Gallo added a new title in the spring: Assistant Conductor of The Florida Orchestra. She now leads TFO’s youth and community concerts, conducts select Pops and Morning Coffee concerts, and regularly assists Music Director Michael Francis and other TFO conductors. “We as conductors, we have to learn our art form in front of others,” Gallo told us. “We of course study at our desks, in private, but the execution of our craft has to be with others. So to me, being an Assistant means to grow in classical music, at the expense of others, truly. It’s a really wonderful transitional time before becoming a music director.”
Kelly
The Hideaway Café closed its doors in May, after 13 years as the area’s preeminent listening room for acoustic music, tasty jazz and more – owner John Kelly was, and is, a musician too, so the Hideaway had some of the best sound equipment in St. Pete (no surprise, Kelly also ran a recording studio in the back). The kitchen and bar were added in 2011. The Hideaway was the victim of the rising tide of rent prices downtown – Kelly simply couldn’t afford the place any longer. He’s still booking pop-up concerts around town, and looking for a suitable spot for brick-and-mortar relocation. Still, he told us just before things went south: “I’m going to miss this room, regardless of where we land or what we do.”
Gottschlich
A noted jazz pianist who’s recorded three albums, Austria’s Markus Gottschlich is also an arts administrator, and he became executive director of the Warehouse Arts District Association in June (the last ED, Diane Morton, departed in 2020, and the position was filled temporarily in the interim). Over time, Gottschlich pulled back from music, and concert promotion, because he discovered he simply loved working with nonprofit groups. As for WADA, “There’s so much we can do here, in terms of advancement. The new education center. It felt like it had all the ingredients, and it just needed to be activated. And that opportunity was just silently screaming at me.”
First Night St. Pete
Twenty-nine years into its run as THE downtown New Year’s celebration, the family-friendly First Night St. Pete was scrubbed just before it was to start its third decade. Blame the pandemic, if you must, because the walkable, alcohol-free tour of fun stuff just didn’t translate to the virtual world; when First Night returned, live, in 2021, volunteers were reluctant to come back and crowd-surf. More to the point, the crowd itself was light. Hal Freedman, chairman of the nonprofit’s board, told the Catalyst in August that other factors, like staffing and mounting costs, led to what he called a “hiatus.” Fingers crossed, First Night will return next year.
Shepherd
For nearly six years, Clearwater native Kristen A. Shepherd oversaw the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, the city’s longest-lived art center and announced her resignation as executive director in August. Shepherd helped bring the nearly 60-year-old museum squarely into the 21st century via innovative exhibits and programming, and bright new ideas. She is now pursuing her second M.S. degree, in Organizational Leadership at Johns Hopkins University, and doing museum consulting work. “So grateful to have taken some time off this fall to recharge!” she emailed us. “I have never given myself any time off, ever, so this break has been a huge gift.”
Davis
In September, Mayor Ken Welch brought in Celeste Davis as the city’s latest Director of Arts, Culture and Tourism. The St. Pete native is the daughter of the legendary Vyrle Davis, Pinellas County’s first Black superintendent of schools. “This job,” she told the Catalyst, “is all about the city supporting arts and artists – and in addition, with Mayor Welch, we’ve added that pillar of education to it, as well as tourism. You know, there’s this big connection between St. Petersburg being a destination, and all of the arts and cultural venues and opportunities that are here … one thing that I’m looking to do is begin to build a partnership with the arts organizations, the museums, the galleries, local artists, to reach out and build a bridge with the youth in the city.”
Armer
Tony Armer, the St. Petersburg/Clearwater film commissioner since 2014, departed for greener pastures (Dallas, Texas) in October. Florida is one of the few states in the country that does not offer incentives, in the form of tax breaks or cost rebates, to major film studios (that’s why the big studios very rarely come here, and that surely was part of the reason Armer left to run the Dallas Film & Creative Industries Office, a division of Visit Dallas. “To be able to take over as the Film Commissioner in the 4th largest metro area in the United States, in a state with a state film incentive, in one of America’s most iconic cities, was too good to pass up.”
The backlash was deafening in October, when station brass at WUSF-FM announced the elimination of jazz programming from its veteran airwaves. Jazz had been a major component of the bay area’s NPR affiliate for almost six decades, and the decision to pull the plug triggered cries of foul, and howls of pain, from fans, listeners and musicians, all of whom had come to rely on the largely-local programming to keep them informed, and keep them happy. The warning signs began in March, when WUSF’s All Night Jazz went from its 9 p.m.-5 a.m. slot to 9 a.m. to midnight. WUSF, station manager Joanne Urofsky said in a prepared statement, , “will become entirely focused on news and information, including weather and safety, so we can better serve the residents of Florida.” She added that jazz would be added to the station’s online-only Arts Axis site.
https://stpetecatalyst.com/wusf-fm-cancels-its-jazz-programming/
Murray
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj was hired to replace the outgoing Stephanie Gularte as American Stage’s Producing Artistic Director (the top creative position) in October, 2021. By April of this year, he had resigned – no explanation was given – and the search began for his replacement. Playwright and director Helen R. Murray, Executive Director of the Aurora Fox Theatre in Aurora, Colorado, began in the position this October. “I was brought an opportunity that the more I investigated, the more attractive it looked,” Murray told us before she’d fully settled in. “After meeting the board and learning about how passionate they were about American Stage, and their excitement about the ways in which American Stage could keep growing, that was exciting.”
Hine
Getting elected to the Pinellas County School Board in 2020 was a dream realized for James Museum of Western and Wildlife Arts executive director Laura Hine. In fact, she resigned from the museum in November to more doggedly pursue what she feels is her calling, “Education advocacy and public service. And it’s a place I’ve felt, as I’ve gotten more and more engaged in it, and had the opportunity to be in the role that I am on the school board, more and more inspired to really put my fulltime energy into it.” The search is on for her successor, and Hine has pledged to stay put until that person is found.
