Rand SuffolkPhotograph by Ben Rollins Rand Suffolk Artistic Vision: A new focus on making the High Museum of Art look like Atlanta Once a month, the High Museum of Art turns into Atlanta’s hottest nightclub. DJs spin, bartenders pour, and guests explore—and dance—their way through the collections after dark. High Frequency Fridays have sold out for 19 months straight, and they are just one of many ways director Rand Suffolk has reimagined how Atlanta’s premier art museum can reflect its community. When Suffolk took over as director in 2015, the museum was lauded for its blockbuster exhibitions, strong collection, and impressive architecture, but its patrons weren’t representative of the city. Suffolk saw it as a missed opportunity. “I loved the diversity, energy, and entrepreneurial history and spirit within the community,” Suffolk says. “Atlanta was a beneficiary of this U.S. reverse migration. There’s so much creative capital existing here that I thought there was a real opportunity for the High to play an important role in the way Atlanta was evolving.” Suffolk directed two previous museums before coming to the High, but found that Atlanta’s much bigger market called for a novel, multipronged strategy. Growth, inclusivity, collaboration, and connectivity are the four pillars Suffolk relies on to lead the High and empower his employees. The first step was making the museum more accessible. Ticket prices dropped in 2016. The second Sunday and third Wednesday of every month are now free. But it’s not just about economic accessibility; it’s also reaching Atlantans where they are. Second Sundays feature family events that typically bring 4,500 people, and High Frequency Fridays give 3,000 Gen Z and millennials a fun date night. Suffolk theorized that once Atlantans visit the museum, they would want to return regularly. Internationally renowned exhibitions, such as Louvre Atlanta, were great at drawing people in for one gallery, but those visitors wouldn’t be tempted to return until the next shipment from France. “We taught our audience that, unless they wanted to engage with that one big exhibition, there may not be other things to do,” he says. “In some ways, that may have devalued the incredible art that was in our own permanent collection.” Those 16,000-plus pieces were remixed in a 2018 redesign to tell a different narrative that featured the collection’s artists of color, women, and strong Southern focus. From the 19th-century salon wall in the American Art galleries to Alabama folk artist Thornton Dial’s bold canvases of found materials in the skyway, the new layout became more engaging and easier to follow. The challenge is in achieving balance. Megahit exhibitions like the 2022 Obama Portraits and 2021’s Calder-Picasso show that Atlanta can pull top-tier talent that generates buzz: 2019’s Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors was so popular, 400 people camped outside the museum to get tickets on the final day. It’s just as important to Suffolk, however, that the High be known for its homegrown exhibitions, like the 2021 spotlight on Atlanta’s Nellie Mae Rowe. Suffolk empowers his curators to exhibit and acquire art that will fit with the High’s ethos but also push it further. Since 2017, about 60 percent of exhibitions have featured artists of color, LGBTQ+ people, or women. Collecting work by a diverse range of artists is also pivotal as the High approaches its centennial in 2026 and sets the stage for the next 25 years. Suffolk’s strategies are helping the museum represent the real Atlanta despite the struggles every cultural institution has faced since the Covid-19 pandemic. Visitors are trending younger, with 62 percent under 35 last year. When Suffolk started nine years ago, people of color accounted for 15 percent of museum visitors; now they comprise 52 percent, mirroring the city’s population. Nearly 40 percent of patrons come from households making less than $70,000 a year. Membership has also grown accordingly. In 2015, the High had 26,000 members with a less than 50 percent retention rate. Now it’s up to 41,000 with a 70 percent retention rate. “It’s really exciting because it means we’re not just engaging our audience, but they’re much more engaged with us,” he says. The High might have earned its reputation as a classic cultural institution that has evolved with the city, but it must keep changing to maintain that mantle. Suffolk’s mission is to expand the museum in all areas. “What does it mean for the High to be the most accessible art museum in America?” Suffolk asks. “That’s what our work will be.” —Tess Malone Tomer ZvulunPhotograph by The Sintoses Tomer Zvulun Taking the Risk: The Atlanta Opera overcame financial fear to elevate itself into a company that commands international notice For Tomer Zvulun, it was a wonderful life. The Israeli native and his wife, Susanna, made their home in New York City, in a house in the Upper West Side, while he worked as a stage director at The Metropolitan Opera. The job allowed Zvulun directing opportunities with the Met but also the leeway to travel the world to helm freelance productions. Along his odyssey, he was able to direct three shows at The Atlanta Opera: The Flying Dutchman in 2009, The Magic Flute in 2010, and Lucia di Lammermoor in 2011. When The Atlanta Opera opened its general and artistic director position, Zvulun applied. He got the job and started in 2013. Challenges faced him almost immediately, however. Soon after the 2008 recession, The Atlanta Opera had to scale down full productions from four to three annually. The company was in debt, fundraising had become an issue, and the board of directors was scared. Zvulun had to work under a decree from the board that the company could only stage Top 30 operas. It didn’t want risks. It was an impossible proposition for a new director wanting to carve out his own identity, so Zvulun countered with his own idea. He told them, “Okay, let me work with your panic.” Zvulun agreed to produce three new productions of classic operas on the mainstage. But he also wanted to do a fourth show: a small chamber opera by Jake Heggie called Three Decembers. After Zvulun promised the opera would only cost $100,000, he received the go-ahead—if he could raise the money. A donor provided the funding, and the production was acclaimed. It launched what became the company’s Discoveries series: Modern, cutting-edge smaller works that have attracted new audiences to the opera. Using the same model for the next three years—producing three mainstream operas on the mainstage and one to two Discoveries series offerings—The Atlanta Opera began to get back on track financially by 2016 and was again able to offer four annual mainstage productions. Zvulun’s mantra from the beginning has remained steady: Increase artistic risk while lowering financial risk. Over time, the company has pushed the envelope and not only grown a base of enthusiastic opera attendees who like experimental and modern shows but also increased the appetite of the board for more risky fare, if it’s accompanied by fundraising. “As time went by, the board could trust the leadership and go along with it,” says Zvulun. “Now they don’t even ask what repertoire we’ll do because they know it’ll be good.” Tweaking his offerings and incorporating musical theater into the mix has proven fruitful. “I am a firm believer in a spectrum of storytelling,” he says. “I think opera can be an ivory tower for snobbish opera fans, and I am all against that.” When he programmed The Pirates of Penzance in 2016, the decision was heavily criticized by some board members and donors, but it broke attendance records, and ultimately they recognized the number of first-time audience members it reached. Zvulun followed with Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, and then Cabaret. About half the audience that attended those shows was new to The Atlanta Opera. The Discoveries series continues to soar. The opera staged the powerful Out of Darkness at Theatrical Outfit in 2018 with actor Tom Key. Last year’s The Shining, a coproduction with Alliance Theatre, had 12 performances, and about 75 percent of the audience was opera newcomers. With an annual budget that now reaches $15 million, The Atlanta Opera enters its 2024–25 season as a Top 10 opera company for the first time, according to industry service agency Opera America. It’s a huge achievement for Zvulun. Looking ahead, the opera house has staged the first two parts of Richard Wagner’s epic four-part Ring cycle, with the final two scheduled for the next two seasons. Zvulun hopes to eventually stage all four parts of the Ring cycle at once as a sort of Wagner festival, which he envisions will bring in people from around the world. Zvulun originally considered Atlanta as a career stepping stone. Yet after 12 years in the city, he now has a different perspective. “I care about this city,” he says. “My kids are in schools and I’m involved in organizations.” He’s also seen something of a revolution in Atlanta the past few years as new arts leadership has taken hold. “I think this city is a hotbed for arts organizations right now,” Zvulun says. “Something is going on in Atlanta that is fantastic and highly supported by the community. It’s exploding, and I want the city to be the home of the most incredible opera company.” —Jim Farmer Nathalie StutzmannPhotograph by Audra Melton Nathalie Stutzmann Passing the Baton: The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s new music director brings a bold energy Nathalie Stutzmann has had a remarkable two years. Since assuming the podium as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2022, the Grammy-nominated contralto, turned internationally celebrated conductor, has amassed a string of highly lauded appearances worldwide, including a debut with the Bayreuth Festival that spurred the German newspaper Die Süddeutsche Zeitung to proclaim her “probably the most important conductor of our time.” None of this will surprise ASO patrons, who have applauded Stutzmann for her trenchant musicality as well as her ability to capture the public imagination. As ASO Executive Director Jennifer Barlament says, “Nathalie is a remarkably courageous artist. Audiences react to her with wild enthusiasm, and Atlantans have fallen in love with her.” The numbers bear out the hype. Attendance levels for ASO classical concerts are averaging 86 percent—an impressive post-pandemic statistic for any arts organization today—while Stutzmann evenings are registering several points higher, into the 90s. Subscription levels appear to be climbing as well. Stutzmann, 59, was born in France to parents who were classical singers. She made her concert debut in 1985, then performed for the first time at Lincoln Center in New York City in 1995 and at Carnegie Hall in 1998, acclaimed as one of the world’s great contralto singers. But the fire to conduct burned within her, a profession that only recently became friendly to women. Stutzmann is just the second woman to helm a major American orchestra; her appointment to the ASO was announced in the New York Times. While incoming leadership in some Atlanta arts organizations have encountered a need for regrouping and repair work, Stutzmann has taken on what was already an artistically thriving entity and has perceptively built upon the storied success of her predecessors. She has one of the country’s most skilled bands at her disposal. “They are artists,” Stutzmann says of her players. “What I love about my orchestra is there is such good will, and such a will to seriously work to improve our performances. People who feel they don’t have to work anymore are not artists. We try every day to get better.” Stutzmann expresses pride in what she and the orchestra have achieved. “My dream is to make them the most physically engaged and emotionally expressive orchestra possible,” she says. “I push them because they already have this ability inside. My role is just to bring it out.” To that end, Stutzmann has employed a unique method of singing phrases to her players rather than utilizing metaphors to express what she wants to hear. Orchestra members have responded to this eagerly, as well as to her encouragement for them to “create characters” with their sound. “Even if a player has only one note, there is storytelling behind it,” she says. “You must open the imagination, so they think about what character, what sort of sound is needed.” Stutzmann’s sound has been described as warm and powerful, with a greatness of heart, and her reputation is growing. Last season, she led a series of ASO concerts that celebrated the 200th birthday of composer Anton Bruckner and attracted patrons from across the country. Over the summer, the documentary and concert film My Boléro by ASO video director Hilan Warshaw premiered on Medici TV and took viewers on a fascinating journey of discovery with Stutzmann as she explored the Paris Opera Ballet’s original orchestration of Maurice Ravel’s beloved piece. Looking toward the future, Stutzmann intends to focus the orchestra more strongly on the large-scale German and Russian Romantic classics, which are her specialty, as well as on French music. “They have been a champion of modern music,” she says. “We will continue to play modern music and do commissions. But I think it is a good time for them to come back a little more to the core repertoire. There are so many things that they have never played.” She speaks with delight of rehearsing Ravel’s Menuet antique, and while the 2024–25 season will open with the Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1, the following week brings one of the Austro-Bohemian composer’s most emblematic creations: the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which has never been heard in its entirety in Atlanta. “A rising tide elevates all boats,” says Barlament. “And ultimately, the ASO’s momentum has the opportunity to elevate the position of the entire arts and music scene in Atlanta.” —Mark Thomas Ketterson Gennadi NedviginPhotograph by Ben Rollins Gennadi Nedvigin In Step: Atlanta Ballet sees a new vision finally come to life onstage Eight years ago, when Gennadi Nedvigin stepped in as the fourth artistic director of Atlanta Ballet, he brought a mission to bring his taste in world-class ballet to Atlanta and to commission new works that would contribute to the art form’s progress. He planned to draw from his training at Moscow’s tradition-steeped Bolshoi Ballet Academy and his nearly two decades as a leading dancer with San Francisco Ballet. In Nedvigin’s vision, Atlanta Ballet would grow to be on par with ballet companies in such cities as Houston and Boston and gain recognition as a more active player on the international ballet scene. For Atlanta Ballet, the vision was a 180-degree turn. Nedvigin’s predecessor, John McFall, had taken a unique contemporary approach, with a philosophy that valued creative risk-taking. Projects with Outkast’s Big Boi and Indigo Girls pushed the company’s artistic boundaries while keeping pace with its home city’s energy. Nedvigin’s concept of a “versatile and diverse repertoire” revolved more closely around a classical center. Even in the ballets he has commissioned, Nedvigin is keen on pushing dancers’ physical boundaries within a highly polished, if more conservative, aesthetic. To make his vision work, Nedvigin had to raise dancers’ technical level, and he knew it would take a few years. He didn’t, however, expect to lose nearly half the company at the end of his first season after they bristled at the change in direction. Nor did he expect a global pandemic and a social justice movement that urged the company to grow more racially diverse. Despite challenges and setbacks, Atlanta Ballet is now realizing his vision. Last season, dancers looked strong performing a diverse repertoire that was both distinctive and internationally relevant. Simply put, the dancing has newfound structural integrity, largely due to Nedvigin’s belief that a solid classical foundation is essential for dancers. “Those are the rules, how you do it,” he says. “Later on, you find your inner soul and you create the way you develop yourself as an artist. And then you can explore different techniques.” The young and inexperienced dancers brought into the company struggled at first to reach the levels of professionalism that the repertoire demanded. For Nedvigin’s first two seasons, dancers’ technical skill increased, though a scant few projected the emotional power that longtime audiences had grown to expect. Then the pandemic caused deep financial losses, with Nutcracker budget shortfalls near $1 million for two years. The dancers kept training during the shutdown and returned to the stage as a more spirited, cohesive group. In resident choreographer Claudia Schreier’s 2021 Pleiades Dances, dancers’ chiseled bodies imprinted space with mathematically elegant lines, their movements imbued with a visceral sense of formal beauty and the exhilaration that comes from achieving it. The hiring of Schreier, who is Black, is part of an effort to bring diverse voices to the stage through guest choreographers, composers, and designers. Among them is Kiyon Ross, associate artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet, who’ll present a world premiere in September. But the struggle to recruit Black performers continues. Last year, the company boasted an unprecedented nine Black dancers across the main company and Atlanta Ballet 2, a training company at the school’s top level. Some of those have departed and will likely be replaced this season, both through outside recruitment and from the school, which is developing a pipeline for dancers from diverse backgrounds to rise from the academy to the company. Like his dancers, Nedvigin has grown into his role. He now has a supportive team in place and has gained a broader view of how the organization works. “It takes more than just me,” he says. “It’s a payoff of hard work by creating, demonstrating, propelling, and nurturing.” Whether it be dancers, artistic staff, production, marketing, or development, he knows “every part of the organization is important, and they need to know how appreciated they are.” Word on company growth has gotten out to the ballet community at large, and this has led to new artistic connections and creations. Last season’s high-profile Coco Chanel—The Life of a Fashion Icon, coproduced by Hong Kong Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Queensland Ballet—is one example. Nedvigin says, “We did put ourselves on the map where other organizations, larger or smaller, are taking us seriously and see us as a potential partner.” —Cynthia Bond Perry Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher MosesPhotograph by Ben Rollins Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher Moses Dual Vision: As rare coartistic directors, the pair is building their own legacy at Alliance Theatre When Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Christopher Moses began their stint as coartistic directors at Alliance Theatre—first as interim in 2022, then officially last June—they inherited a space that had been helmed by Susan Booth for more than two decades. Before Booth, who stepped down to lead the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2022, it had been guided by Tony-winning director Kenny Leon for more than a decade. It’s a unique setup, one that Moses and Kajese-Bolden say relies on an explicit trust in each other’s opinions and expertise. It didn’t hurt that they were both already deeply embedded in the community rather than starting from scratch as newcomers. “Atlanta is a complex, fascinating city that takes a long time to know,” Moses says. “A huge part of this job is listening to the needs of the city, which drives pretty much all our decisions.” Both Moses and Kajese-Bolden started in theater from a very young age—if through decidedly different channels. Although his parents introduced him to theater, Moses’s first gravitation toward the dramatic was church. “If I’m being honest, it was probably my first Catholic mass,” he says. “They understand, inherently, drama and tension and transcendence.” Kajese-Bolden’s first spark toward performance happened as a youngster growing up in Zimbabwe during that country’s earliest days. Her father regularly hosted gatherings of political players who chatted around the dinner table. She remembers getting the chance to share a story one evening, and how all eyes in the room fell on her. At that moment, it crystallized that words could have power if delivered the right way. Kajese-Bolden moved to Atlanta in 2013, and Moses was one of the first theater people to reach out to her. She is an accomplished director and actor who has worked at local theaters, such as Synchronicity Theatre, where she won a Suzi Bass award (the Atlanta version of the Tony) for directing. At the Alliance, she previously served as associate artistic director. This month, Kajese-Bolden will direct The Mountaintop on Alliance’s main stage, Pulitzer winner Katori Hall’s play that imagines Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night in the Lorraine Motel before he was assassinated. The Alliance is not only the largest regional theater in the Southeast, it’s one of the longest-running in Atlanta, founded in 1968. In keeping with the company’s history of hosting world premieres—more than 135, according to its website, 10 of which have moved to Broadway (including The Color Purple)—the pair have leaned even harder into this legacy of fostering new works. “The danger is to underestimate an audience and think, Oh, this is all they can handle or all they want,” Moses says. “Our audience is sophisticated and that’s allowing us to explore new stories and not just old classics.” They also want to provide opportunities for the influx of artists lured to Atlanta by the film industry, while at the same time nurturing artists who started here so that homegrown careers can continue to flourish. Last year, they started a free childcare program for parents working on their shows. When Kajese-Bolden first arrived in Atlanta, she recalls, it was a really big deal when the Alliance did a show and called it an all-Atlanta cast. By contrast, today, “There is an expectation and an excitement to see local talent on our stage,” in addition to opportunities for local directors and scenic, lighting, and sound designers. Another focus is attracting a wider swath of audiences to Alliance shows across race, economic status, age, and geography. Moses has spent over a decade at the Alliance as associate artistic director and director of education, ramping up the theater’s robust youth footprint, a mission he still champions. The children’s programming at the Alliance has a reputation for presenting work that bucks against the stereotype of a dumbed-down “kids show.” Last year, Into the Burrow turned Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit into a meditation on land ownership and fear of displacement. It ran for 12 weeks and was selling at 96 percent capacity. “We still haven’t hit the ceiling for how hungry people are for this kind of work,” says Moses. On the horizon is the brand-new Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families, which is slated to open in 2026. “We deeply believe that this is going to transform the city,” Kajese-Bolden says. “We’re hoping to be a beacon for other theaters to say that theater is a birthright.” —Alexis Hauk This article appears in our September 2024 issue. The post Meet the new generation of Atlanta’s arts leaders appeared first on Atlanta Magazine.