And a press release from Boston University:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>For Release Tuesday, June 12, 2001<BR>Contact: Sarah Godbout, 617-358-1240,
sgodbout@bu.edu<P>BOSTON UNIVERSITY NAMES JEFFREY BABCOCK DEAN OF SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS <BR>Boston Ballet CEO to take helm in August<P> (Boston, Mass.) — Jeffrey N. Babcock, general director and chief executive officer of Boston Ballet, has been named dean of the School for the Arts and professor of music at Boston University, effective August 1st.<P> Babcock, who has more than 25 years' experience in performing arts management, education administration, strategic planning, fundraising, and teaching, was selected after a seven-month search. <P> "Jeffrey Babcock has the combination of artistic vision and administrative acumen needed to build on our strengths in the fine and performing arts," says Boston University President Jon Westling. "He has thoughtfully and creatively directed several kinds of performing arts organizations and achieved notable success in developing new programs. Dr. Babcock will help the University to multiply its contributions to the cultural life of Boston and the nation." <P> As CEO of Boston Ballet, one of America's top five ballet companies, Babcock led the company through a period of significant growth and strategic restructuring. The ballet company, with 58 dancers and 57 orchestral musicians, performed more than 120 performances in the 2000-2001 season to a total audience of 250,000. <P> Under the auspices of its Center for Dance Education, Boston Ballet operates one of the nation's largest, most profitable, and most comprehensive ballet schools, in which 60 faculty members instruct more than 2,400 students each year in three Greater Boston locations. The Ballet's highly regarded education and outreach programs give 20,000 inner-city and suburban students of all ages opportunities to dance and attend performances each academic year. <P> "I am honored and delighted to be asked to lead the next era of institutional growth at Boston University's School for the Arts," says Dr. Babcock. "I look forward to working with the School's distinguished faculty, gifted students and staff to build on existing strengths and to creating a compelling institutional vision and strategic plan that will take the SFA to a new level of artistic and educational excellence."<P> From 1991 to 1997, Babcock worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games as director of a four-year Cultural Olympiad and executive producer and artistic director of the Centennial Olympic Arts Festival, a $25 million international arts and entertainment program, the largest cultural program in Olympic Games history. <P> In collaboration with Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas, he co-founded and served as president and CEO of The New World Symphony in Miami, Florida, a national post-graduate training orchestra and chamber music program for exceptionally gifted musicians. During Babcock's tenure, the New World Symphony made three international tours to Europe, South America, and Japan. Together with artistic directors Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Lewis, and Michael Tilson Thomas, he also founded and managed the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, a national summer training program for orchestral musicians and conductors at Hollywood Bowl.<P> Prior to his tenure with Boston Ballet, Babcock served as executive director of the $140 million Maryland Center for Performing Arts at the University of Maryland, guiding the development of the Center's artistic and educational mission, creating the facility's operating and performance plan, and overseeing construction issues. Early in his career Babcock chaired and taught in the department of music theory and composition at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan for four years. <P> Babcock earned a Ph.D. in music composition and a B.A. with honors in Music Theory and History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, which recognized his national leadership in the arts by presenting him with that institution's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1992. <P> An eclectic composer whose output includes an opera, Mirrors, as well as works for orchestra, dance, and chorus, chamber music, electronic and computer music, jazz, and music for film and television, Babcock also is an experienced conductor and professional musician (keyboards, bass, and tuba) who brings to the School for the Arts an extensive background in information and arts technology, and television and radio production. <P> With more than 900 students, and a distinguished full-time faculty of 152, Boston University's School for the Arts is an internationally recognized conservatory-style school that offers advanced professional training and a wide range of important performance activities and ensembles, and prominent visual arts exhibitions in its schools of Music, Theatre Arts, and Visual Arts. The School for the Arts also founded and continues to sponsor the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and offers two nationally prominent summer programs for pre-college students: the Boston University Tanglewood Institute for musicians, and the Boston University Theater Institute at the Huntington Theatre, one of Boston's two major professional theatres, which is an affiliated resident organization of Boston University, and an active academic partner of the School of Theatre Arts. <P> – 30 – June 12, 2001<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>