ChamberFest welcomes new managing director

Jacqueline Taylor

ChamberFest Cleveland presented its second season this past June, offering eight concerts that featured rising-star classical musicians from around the country, performing in various small-ensemble combinations at eight nearly sold-out venues.

The organization has announced the appointment of Jacqueline Taylor to the position of managing director. Taylor will guide the organization as it prepares for its third summer festival of world-class chamber music.   

Taylor’s professional background includes positions as director of artistic planning for Bravo! Vail Music Festival; managing director of Apollo’s Fire; co-founder and director of New York’s Free for All at Town Hall music series; executive director of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and managing director of the Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Taylor was born and raised in Sussex County, N.J., and attended The Juilliard School as a trumpet major.

ChamberFest, described by the Plain Dealer as “the most significant addition to the region’s classical music scene,” has demonstrated that a growing and enthusiastic audience exists for classical chamber music, presented in a fresh and contemporary style.

ChamberFest Cleveland is the joint creation of a father-daughter musical duo: Franklin Cohen, principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra, and his daughter Diana, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. They founded the organization in 2011 to enrich Greater Cleveland’s cultural landscape by presenting a unique, intensive, two-week festival of concerts in diverse spaces that encompass a wide geographic and demographic range.

“ChamberFest has achieved incredible success, performing to sell-out audiences in its two years of existence,” said Taylor, who looks forward to the challenge of working with this group to expand its mission of bringing chamber music performers to Cleveland audiences. “We are looking to engage new, young music lovers with this intimate and very special musical form,” she added.

Diana Cohen, ChamberFest’s artistic director stated, “We are very fortunate to have someone of Jacqui’s experience as the director of major music organizations and festivals around the country. She brings vision and expertise to ChamberFest at a moment in our development when we are ready to expand to a new level of artistic ambition and community outreach.”

ChamberFest Cleveland will present its 2014 season from June 15 through June 29 in venues that include the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, CWRU’s Harkness Chapel, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Transformer Station in Ohio City, the Capitol Theater Cinema, the Cedar Lee Theater and Dunham Tavern’s refurbished barn.

For more information about ChamberFest and its upcoming season, contact Gayle Gathercole at 216-932-9877, or by e-mail at ggathercole@sbcglobal.net.