Meet The Industry’s Newest Company Member & Board Chair
As we prepare to announce our new Artistic Director Collective members and enter an exciting chapter for The Industry, we continue to work towards strengthening our organization’s infrastructure through its leadership and artists. With this in mind, we are pleased to announce two new developments – keyboardist Lucy Yates has joined our Company, and Ruth Eliel has been appointed Chair of The Industry’s Board of Directors.
The Industry Company was launched two years ago, to cultivate opportunities for talent on every level of opera’s creation and to shine a spotlight on the artists who have created our ambitious productions. Every year we add artists from the various disciplines that make our projects so exciting: singers, designers, writers, and instrumentalists.
Meet Lucy Yates
“I can give Lucy a vague suggestion of a figured bass, a standard crazy difficult 20-staff orchestra score, and she executes both at the piano with élan and grace. Even more, I can give her a blank piece of music paper and she can fill in the gaps just by listening. These, by the way, are all actual things that I’ve thrown at her with no notice. [I didn’t exactly do that last one on purpose, really, it just . . . happened.]” – Marc Lowenstein, Music Director
Watching people at that level of talent and savoir faire and playfulness, is unparalleled in my life. That’s the quality and the vitality of artists that The Industry attracts.
Lucy Yates
While Lucy is new to working with The Industry, when we met her for the first time we all knew that her spirit of curiosity and fearlessness would be right at home with this company. You can experience Lucy’s amazing work in Sweet Land, which is available for streaming here.
Meet Ruth Eliel
Ruth joined The Industry’s Board in 2016, right after her retirement from the prestigious Colburn Foundation, where she served as executive director from 2008 through 2015. At the Foundation, Ruth was committed to building and sustaining a strong infrastructure for the arts in Southern California, spending significant time coaching leaders of young organizations and Colburn grantees as well as working closely with grantees that were facing challenges. She came from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, where she had been executive director from 1997 through 2006. In 2007, Ruth shifted her responsibilities and assumed the title of Associate Executive Director at LACO, fulfilling her desire to focus on her passion for fundraising. Ruth has been a faculty member for many seminars offered by the League of American Orchestras and has mentored executive directors of orchestras through the League and, more recently, through the Kennedy Center’s Arts in Crisis program artists.
“When Ruth announced her retirement from the Foundation in 2015, I was determined to do everything I could to get her to join our Board! Her leadership has helped make LA a place where artists and art workers thrive. Her passion and dedication throughout her career from program creation to mentoring have had an indelible mark on our whole ecosystem.” – Elizabeth Cline, Executive Director
Ruth has been a guest lecturer on arts management at USC, UCLA, California State University Long Beach, American Jewish University, and Loyola Marymount University. She has also served as a grant panelist for the California Community Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She served on the board of councilors of the USC Thornton School of Music and was a founding member of the board of Arts for LA. She currently serves on the boards of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Ojai Music Festival Board and Antaeus Theatre.
I am so excited to be stepping into the position of Board Chair at this particular moment in the life of The Industry, when we are all looking forward to welcoming our two new co-Artistic Directors.
RUTH ELIEL
Since joining the Board, Ruth’s incredible nonprofit management experience has helped build and strengthen our organization. And even before that when we were a grantee and she was executive director at the Colburn Foundation. The Industry’s staff and board of directors look forward to working with Ruth to help chart our course in the next three years.
Please join us in welcoming Lucy and Ruth to their new roles, and stay tuned for more news from The Industry coming soon!