On Monday (5/18) in the Shelter Island Reporter (Suffolk County, N.Y.), Charity Robey profiles local resident Charles Olton, who served as president of the League of American Orchestras from 1995 until his retirement in 2004. Trained in history at Wesleyan University and the University of California at Berkeley, Olton came to the League following posts in New York City as dean of faculty at Barnard College (1977-87) and dean of the Parsons School of Design (1989-95). As president of the League he “worked to establish the Orchestra Leadership Academy to train orchestra managers who had come up through music but lacked business management skills. He also established professional development programs to help improve the fundraising effectiveness of orchestras, and increased opportunities for the development of American conductors.” Earlier in his career Olton taught seminars in American art, and in 2004 he “began to refine ideas into a multi-media course about early American painting, music and the revolution in the arts that accompanied the American Revolution for an adult education program on Shelter Island.” An outgrowth of the course is Olton’s Heroic Vision, an eBook that will be released in June by Green Publishing.   

Posted May 19, 2015