nothin Aleskie Departing Arts & Ideas | New Haven Independent

Aleskie Departing Arts & Ideas

Paul Bass Photo

Aleskie with WNPR’s John Dankosky and Catie Talarski and A&I’s Alex Ripp at last year’s lineup announcement.

After 11 years running the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Director Mary Lou Aleskie will step down in the spring.

An international search for a new executive director will begin in January 2017.

Following is the text of an announcement released by the festival:

Gordon Geballe, board chair of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, announced that Aleskie, who has served in that post since 2005, will depart the festival in the coming months to become the Howard L. Gilman 44 director of the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College.

Mary Lou Aleskie’s remarkable tenure at Arts & Ideas has been distinguished by her tremendous leadership of the Festival staff and board, phenomenal collaboration with artists from around the world, and – – perhaps most importantly – – fierce advocacy for New Haven as a world-class destination for arts lovers locally, nationally, and internationally,” Geballe noted. While we are sad to see Mary Lou go, we are proud of her many successes here and celebrate this new opportunity at Dartmouth for her and her family.”

In the last decade, the Festival has not only succeeded in bringing the world to New Haven. We put New Haven and this Festival on the world stage. While expanding the Festival’s global visibility, we have deepened our commitment to our city and state in a way that not only assures access to great art but has advanced communities and offered real opportunities for training, networking, jobs and performance,” said Aleskie. I am so proud of the work we have accomplished and look forward to watching it flourish well into the future.”

A search committee will be appointed in January and will oversee the hiring of an international search firm to support its efforts. In the interim, the Festival will be co-directed by the Festival’s Managing Director Liz Fisher, Director of Development Tom Griggs, and Director of Programming Chad Herzog.

On behalf of the entire Board, we are fortunate to have Liz, Tom, and Chad on our team to lead our very capable and accomplished staff. We’ve got an astonishing 2017 Festival in store and I can’t wait to share the lineup with the community in March!

Under Aleskie’s tenure, the festival has expanded its offerings in instrumental music, dance, theater, culinary arts and multimedia collaborations while also aiming to open the event more effectively to the New Haven community with its pop-up festivals in Dixwell, The Hill and Fair Haven and community forums, often led by the young people in New Haven. 

To read the Independent’s coverage of past festivals, click here.

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