Deborah Borda | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, US | July 15, 1949
Alma mater | Bennington College Royal College of Music, London [1] |
Occupation(s) | President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic (1991–1999, 2017–2023) [2] |
Known for | President and CEO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2000–2017) [3] [4] |
Website | nyphil.org |
Deborah Borda (born 1949) is a retired American music executive. [5]
Borda was born on July 15, 1949, in New York. [6] At age 12, she moved with her family to Boston. [7]
She graduated from Bennington College with a BA in music in 1971, and studied at the Royal College of Music from 1972 to 1973. [8]
After graduation, Borda moved to Greenwich Village and started to working[ clarification needed ] as a freelancer for ballet, Broadway shows and various orchestras. She was the assistant to the scheduling director of the Marlboro Music Festival in 1976. [7]
She was previously the manager of The Handel and Haydn Society, an executive director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, president and managing director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and both general manager and artistic administrator of the San Francisco Symphony. [9]
In 1991, Borda was appointed Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. She led the organization for eight years until she was appointed President and CEO of Los Angeles Philharmonic, a position later renamed in 2014 as the David C. Bohnett Presidential Chair. [10] This title stems from a $10 million endowment made in 2014, "in honor of Deborah Borda's continuing accomplishments with the Los Angeles Philharmonic". [11]
During her time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Borda oversaw the completion of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, [12] helped recruit Gustavo Dudamel as music director, and joined its board in 2010. Borda developed a strategic plan for the construction and financing of the hall, which officially opened in October 2003. [13]
Borda joined the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership as a Leader-In-Residence in 2015, making her the first fine arts executive to join the center. [14]
In 2017, Borda returned to the New York Philharmonic as President and CEO. [15] During her six year tenure, she led a major renovation of David Geffen Hall, guided the organization through COVID-19, and signed Gustavo Dudamel as the next music director. [16]
In 2020, Borda launched the largest women-only commissioning initiative in history, called Project 19. The project consists of 19 new works by 19 women composers. [17]
Borda is gay. Her longtime partner is Coralie Toevs, a senior major gifts officer at the Metropolitan Opera. [18]
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly called the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. Colloquially referred to as the LA Phil, the orchestra has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is conductor laureate, Zubin Mehta is conductor emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is principal guest conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current composer-in-residence.
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The Los Angeles Master Chorale is a professional chorus in Los Angeles, California, and one of the resident companies of both The Music Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1964 by Roger Wagner to be one of the three original resident companies of the Music Center of Los Angeles County. Grant Gershon has been its music director since 2001, replacing Paul Salamunovich.
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is scheduled to become Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026.
Anne Akiko Meyers is an American violinist. She has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad.
The Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition is one of the most important music competitions of its kind worldwide and is held in Bamberg, Germany. Conductors no older than 35 years may enter.
David C. Bohnett is an American philanthropist and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of the David Bohnett Foundation, a non-profit, grant-making organization devoted to improving society through social activism. It was announced in May of 2024 that Bohnett will become CEO Chair of The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, effective July 8th, 2024.
El Sistema is a publicly financed, voluntary sector, music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu. It later adopted the motto "Music for Social Change." El Sistema-inspired programs provide what the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies describes as "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children." El Sistema has inspired similar programmes in more than 60 other countries. By 2015, according to official figures, El Sistema included more than 400 music centers and 700,000 young musicians. The original program in Venezuela involves four after-school hours of musical training and rehearsal each week, plus additional work on the weekends.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Dylan Mattingly is an American composer from Berkeley, California.
Ernest Martin Fleischmann was a German-born American impresario who served for 30 years as executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which he upgraded to become a top-ranked orchestra. A talented musician, he chose a career on the business aspect of music, rather than a life as a conductor.
Andrew Bain is the principal horn player of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the horn instructor at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.
Mozart in the Jungle is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Alex Timbers, and Paul Weitz for the video-on-demand service Amazon Prime Video. It received a production order in March 2014.
Julianna Di Giacomo is an American operatic soprano who has had an active international singing career since 1999. She has performed leading roles with several major opera houses, including La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. On the concert stage she has appeared with several notable orchestras, including the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Opera Orchestra of New York, and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Soundings is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. It was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was first performed on October 25, 2003, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Williams.
Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts.
Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) is the Los Angeles Philharmonic's initiative to establish youth orchestra programs in underprivileged communities throughout Los Angeles. Modeled on Venezuela's El Sistema, a program which brings classical music education to children from low-income communities, YOLA provides free instruments, music training, and academic support to nearly 800 students age 6-18. A "social project first and artistic project second", 100% of YOLA's 2016 graduating class completed high school, and 90% went on to college.
From Space I Saw Earth is a composition for orchestra and three conductors by the Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason. The piece was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and was premiered with Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Zubin Mehta to celebrate the orchestra's centennial on October 24, 2019.
Gary Ginstling is an American music executive and the President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic.
The Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California has honored Los Angeles Philharmonic CEO Deborah Borda with the John C. Argue Dickens Medal of Honor.