Contributors

Meet the Contributors!

LeAnne Anklan
A Cincinnati native, LeAnne holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati. Upon graduation, she worked as the Senior Marketing Coordinator for FRCH Design Worldwide, an international architecture and design firm. She then worked for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati as Public Relations Manager. Once she joined the program, she served as Marketing Associate for the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. LeAnne is now the Festival Manager for the new Constella Festival of Music and Fine Arts in Cincinnati. LeAnne also serves as a Board Member of both her business fraternity’s alumni chapter (Alpha Kappa Psi) as well as the UC Band Alumni Association. In her free time, you can find her playing flute with the UC Summer Community Band, rooting on Bearcats football and working with her husband Matt on their new house in Spring Grove Village.
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Anna Backer
Anna Backer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Surrounded by a variety of different artists within her immediate family, she developed a love and appreciation of all the arts, including music, theatre, architecture, and photography. She attended Brevard Music Festival for several summers where she studied with Marina Lomazov, Elizabeth Pridonoff and Douglas Weeks. From there, she completed her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. During her time at Converse she was an active member of Delta Omicron, the Converse Collegiate Chapter for MTNA, and Mortar Board, where she served as Publicity Chair, Treasurer, and on the Hospitality Committee, respectively. Throughout her undergraduate studies, she taught piano lessons and tutored undergraduate students in music theory. In 2008 she received the MTNA Teacher’s Award for Pedagogical Excellence. After graduating college, she married her sweetheart and moved to Cincinnati, where he was finishing his degree. Anna is excited about earning her Masters in Arts Administration from CCM, and looking forward to the career opportunities it will bring.
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Charles Bassi
Charles Bassi grew up in Paris, France, and currently studies at the Audencia Nantes School of Management, located on the west coast of France. He has just majored in Cultural institutions and multimedia industries management. Charles was part of a student association promoting rock music and organizing a music festival in Nantes. He was also responsible for the magazine of the association.

His selected professional field emerged in his “classes préparatoires,” from his passion for culture, art and history. The idea of studying Cultural Management drove him to Audencia. Eventually, his target profession is to work for monuments or structures, promoting them in our environment.

Charles completed internships in three different areas of this sector in Europe. First, he worked for Culturespaces (a company managing Monuments like Parisian museums, Waterloo Battlefield and the Arena of Nîmes). Based in Nîmes (in southern France), Charles was in charge of improving the attractiveness of Nimes’ monuments. After this experience, he decided to work at Beaux Arts editions, looking after the development of partnerships as well as the expansion of the editions across Europe, coordinating editorial projects as well. His last internship was in the Netherlands, where he was responsible for communication and fundraising for Europa Nostra, an institution concerned with the valorization of historical and cultural heritage all over Europe.

Currently a part of the Exchange Program in Arts Administration at UC, he is looking forward to enhancing his expertise and knowledge of the Cultural sector, learning about the American way of approaching art and culture and finding the best way to perfect it.
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Zack Germain
Zack is originally from Charleston, South Carolina. He graduated from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina with a Bachelors of Music in Music Theory, where he co‐founded the Ictus Percussion Quartet and studied composition with Mark Kilstofte. He continued his study of Music Theory at Florida State University in Tallahassee where he earned a Masters of Music. While working on his Masters, Zack worked as an intern for the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina, and managed the Box Office for the Whittington‐Pfohl Auditorium.
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Helene Herbert
Originally from the Atlanta area of Conyers, Georgia, Helene earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Oboe Performance from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. At Furman she began to develop interest in Arts Administration, where she worked closely with the faculty and staff in the Music Department and also interned at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina for several summers. Helene moved to Cincinnati and obtained her Master’s degree in Music Performance from CCM in 2009. During her time at CCM Helene realized her passion for arts education and for arts administration and after graduating went on to work as the Development and Special Events Intern at the Brevard Music Center, followed by the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. She is excited to further her skills through the MA/MBA program, loves working with people, and hopes to work as Director of Development for a performing arts organization. This past year Helene interned with the Cincinnati Ballet and will be returning this fall as a part-time Development Associate. In her spare time, Helene loves running, baking and traveling, and is addicted to coffee.
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Jason Hurwitz
Born and raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Jason realized that he wanted to play the violin at age 3 after seeing Itzhak Perlman play for Oscar the Grouch on “Sesame Street”; at age 5, he started in the local Suzuki program. Although officially he only ever studied classical music, Jason got into alternative violin in his high school’s Strolling Strings group and in his jobs as a bluegrass fiddler at both Knoebels Amusement Resort and HersheyPark, and continued pushing the violin’s limits throughout college. Jason earned his degree in Music Education from the University of Miami where he was Homecoming King and President of the Beta Tau chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Following graduation, Jason landed his dream job as a member of the cast of Barrage, the international high-octane touring alternative violin show. During his four years with Barrage, Jason was elected to the position of Performers’ Representative, and, in this capacity, was responsible for all of the communication and contract negotiation between the cast, management, and the American Federation of Musicians.

Over the summer of 2010, Jason worked in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as the onstage electric violinist in the Cirque Productions show “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy.” Currently, Jason is pursuing a dual degree MBA/MA in Arts Administration at the University of Cincinatti, and also manages two performing arts series as the Cultural Programs Coordinator at UC Raymond Walters College. This past summer, Jason interned at the Overture Center for the Arts (Madison, WI), primarily assisting the Transition Manager as the Center transitions from the public to not-for-profit sector but doing projects for the development, finance, programming and administrative departments as well.
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Emmanuel Jacomet

Emmanuel Jacomet grew up in Paris, France, and currently studies at the Audencia Nantes School of Management, located in the west coast of France. He has just majored in Cultural institution and multimedia industry management. Emmanuel was part of the student association in charge of filming all the events of the school. He managed with the other students to convert this club into a genuine production company for the students and the promotion of his school.

Passionate about films and the industry, Emmanuel completed three internships in the movie production business. First, he worked as an assistant location manager on the set of a TV film. Then he moved to Brussels where he worked as a production assistant for the first integrated studio in Belgium, uMedia. Besides working on scripts and production contracts, he specifically took care of the Cannes Film Festival 2010 venue. Emmanuel came back to Paris to join director Luc Besson’s production company, EuropaCorp, where he worked as a distribution assistant releasing both arty films and major productions. He was also in charge of organizing the premiere of the movies.

Emmanuel is now attending his Exchange Program in Art Administration at UC, looking forward to extend his expertise and knowledge to other kinds of art, especially theater.
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Stephanie Johnson
Stephanie is originally from Melbourne, Florida and graduated from The Florida State University with a BM in brass performance and English literature. As a horn player, Stephanie has performed with the FSU Wind Orchestra and University Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Albany (GA) Symphony Orchestra. She finished as the highest undergraduate horn player in both the 2009 and 2010 Southeast Horn Workshop Solo Competitions, and her ensemble, Renegade Horn Quartet, won the quartet division in 2010. She is also published in The Horn Call, the journal of the International Horn Society.

For the summer of 2011, she was the National Advancement/ National Symphony Orchestra Development intern at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Before coming to CCM, Stephanie interned with both the Tallahassee Little Theatre and Americans for the Arts in Washington, DC. She also spent three years working in the FSU Undergraduate Music Office and was the student coordinator for the College of Music’s Board of Advisors. She hopes to pursue a career in orchestral management. She enjoys reading, college football and learning how to cook.
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Anne-Claire Parize
Anne-Claire grew up between Paris and the Loire valley in France. After high school, she specialized in literature for two years before entering Audencia Nantes Graduate School of Management, on the Western coast of France. In Audencia, her associative involvement included taking charge of the communication for the cultural association Isegoria which is welcoming conferences from major French personalities. In 2011, she majored in Marketing for Product Management before flying to the United States where she is currently enjoying an exchange semester as part of the Arts Administration Program at UC.

As part of her degree, Anne-Claire completed a summer internship in the Business Unit Premium of the event agency Auditoire from the TBWA group. In 2010, she has undertaken two internships in Australia, first as a Cultural Assistant at the Alliance Française of Canberra then at the National Gallery of Australia as part of the Marketing & Communications department.
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Victor Pourcel
Victor Pourcel grew up in Courbevoie, a city situated in a suburb of Paris, France. After finishing his secondary school, majoring in economics and awarded with high honors, he decided to study letters and human sciences during two years in “classes préparatoires.” Thrilled by the study of philosphy, literature, history and geography, which improved his analytic skills and gave him a solid basis of culture, he nonetheless felt the need to go back to more practical studies.

Thus, after his two years in “classes préparatoire,” he was admitted to the Audencia School of Management, situated in Nantes, on the West coast of France. There he began a series of internships and learned about marketing, accounting, strategy and finance. His first two month internship consisted of writing for the cultural pages of a french daily newspaper. His second was more orientated in pure economics when he worked six months aa private equity firm, analysing and financing firms’ projects of development. He made one more internship, in Artmedia, the most important artistic agency in France, where he worked for four months. Mostly orientated in cinema, Victor continued to work with Artmedia, with them sending him three scenarri of movies each week over the next four months, while he was majoring in cultural management at Audencia. His work with these scenarii consisted of reading them and sending them back critiqued and in an adapted format that was more useful for artistic agents.

Currently Victor is doing his exchange quarter as part of the MA/MBA in Arts Administration program at the University of Cincinnati in order to extend his knowledge about cultural fields in the U.S. In the future, he imagines himself becoming an artistic agent.
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Kristi Reed
Kristi grew up in the small town of Hillman, Michigan. She began to pursue her love of music at a young age and began playing in the band, taking voice lessons and performing in a local community theatre. Her love of music drove her to study at Ohio Northern University in Ada where she graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance and Professional and Organizational Communication. She spent five years working at the Freed Center for the Performing Arts as a Student House Manager and Student Box Office Manager and eventually worked her way up to become the Assistant to the Managing Director. As the MD’s Assistant, she learned the art of grant writing, programming, educational outreach and several other portions of arts administration. Kristi also handled all fundraising for small to medium donors at the FC.

She attended the 2009 Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in New York as a volunteer. Her job at the Freed Center and the amazing people she worked with created Kristi’s passion for Arts Administration and pushed her to join CCM’s program. Kristi eventually wants to be a Managing Director or Development Director for either a music performing venue or a children’s theatre. Kristi is thrilled to be part of CCM’s team, and can’t wait for a long, successful career in the arts.
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Tyler Roe
Tyler is originally from Ashland, Kentucky. He attended Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Music with minors in Philosophy and Business Administration. While at Transylvania, Tyler studied saxophone with Dr. Lee Patrick and remained and active performer in both university and community bands and chamber ensembles. He also helped organize the Music For Fun concert series aimed at providing Transylvania students with performance opportunities other than those required by their degree program. After graduating from Transylvania, Tyler attended Florida State University where he earned his Masters in Music Theory in 2009. Tyler served as the Development Associate for the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra for the 2010-11 season, and worked over the summer as the Program Services Assistant for the Brevard Music Center.
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Taj Seyal
Taj grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. He earned a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance from CCM, where he studied with Philip Collins and Alan Siebert, and a Master of Music in Trumpet Performance from Indiana University, where he studied with John Rommel. As a trumpet player, Taj has performed in both jazz and classical ensembles and at numerous summer festivals, including the Lake Placid International Trumpet Seminar and Bar Harbor Brass Week. He is also a singer, songwriter, and composer, and has recorded and performed several of his compositions.

Taj hopes to work in marketing or artistic planning for a symphony orchestra or performing arts center, and is excited to be pursuing these goals in the Arts Administration program at CCM.
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Jenifer Thomas
Though originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Jenifer received her degree in Vocal Music Performance from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. While in Louisville, she interned with the Louisville Orchestra, Kentucky Opera, and mentored with the Managing Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville. Much of her time was dedicated to Cardinal Singers, an internationally‐ranked chamber choir. With this group, she traveled to South Korea, Taiwan, and China, where the group received gold medals at the World Choir Championships. During her time in Cincinnati, Jenifer has earned the position of Marketing and Public Relations Manager for VAE: Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble, after completing a year-long internship. In addition, Jenifer spent her summer interning for The Santa Fe Opera. Jenifer’s passion for opera has led her to the Arts Administration program at CCM, after which she hopes to continue into the world of opera companies in an artistic or marketing capacity. Hobbies include yoga, learning to cook, and reading.
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David Walker
For the past 16 years, countertenor David Walker has been very fortunate to enjoy an international performing career which has included opera, oratorio, and orchestral performances on some of the world’s most celebrated stages, and with some of the most highly regarded orchestras, such as the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich), English National Opera (London), the National Symphony, and the St. Petersburg Orchestra (Russia). David, recognized for his virtuosic artistry and deeply connective dramatic expression, is highly sought after in operatic work ranging from the Baroque to the Contemporary Eras. His honors include a 2006 Australian Helpmann Award Nomination, the 1999 ARIA (Awards Recognizing Individual Artistry) Award, winning the 1998 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a 1998 Sullivan Foundation Career Grant and 1st place in the 1997 Florida Grand Opera Competition. David holds a BA in Industrial Engineering from Lafayette College and an MM in Vocal Performance from Florida State University, and was the Business Manager for an Episcopal Cathedral for four years before completing his MM degree. He has completed internships focusing on Development/Marketing with Sarasota Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. He is currently the Associate Director of Philanthropy for the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. He is motivated to enhance, cultivate, and nurture the arts in America, particularly in opera, and with the combination of his performing experience and this MBA/MA Arts Administration degree, he hopes to become a general director of an opera company.
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Tony Zancanella
Tony Zancanella is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is coming to Cincinnati directly from the University of New Mexico with a B.M. in Vocal Performance. He is a founding member and current treasurer of The 505 Chorus, a young men’s a cappella/barbershop chorus, which has performed nationally for the last two years, and sits on the board of Opera Southwest, Albuquerque’s regional opera company (serving as treasurer in 2009-2010). He sings regularly with the opera, as well as with many other community and professional choruses around the state. Tony’s career goal is to assume the directorship of a major opera company.
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