Dear friends,
As I write this, I am excitedly preparing to step forward and join the Ebell of LA team as your first Executive Director. As part of that preparation, I have spent many hours over the past few weeks with Philip Miller, our retiring General Manager, absorbing as much information as possible and walking and poking into rooms throughout the Ebell campus. I have had the privilege of spending some time with our powerhouse board members, and members. Every single person I have met and who has helped train me has been unfailingly kind, gracious and generous. I will never be able to adequately express my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you for your encouragement and trust, for this opportunity to join this sisterhood and the great honor or working beside you to advance our mission, which frankly is more critically important than ever. ” Our mission is to participate in and encourage the educational, cultural and social growth of the diverse Los Angeles community; and to conserve and protect our historic campus, collections and Wilshire Ebell Theatre.”
I have been somewhat obsessively dwelling on our mission as I have shuttled back and forth between the Ebell and the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, my professional home with LA Opera for the last 20 years. Confession time: I am a true ardent believer in what the Ebell mission promises: that we can make our communities and our connections within them better, stronger, more fulfilling through arts, culture and education. Engagement with culture is a basic human need, and one that is frequently denied. In this, the Ebell mission aligns with and anticipated what the United Nations has also declared in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”
I promise you that I will devote myself to meeting the joyful challenge of fulfilling our mission. I will be eager to work with our board and members to see what community connections, resources and expertise they might be able to identify or share. I will seek out other organizations with whom to partner, because no one can do it alone. Our Ebell of LA founders certainly knew that. They knew that when women banded together there was nothing we could not accomplish. Our motto expresses my feelings perfectly:“I will find a way or make one—I serve.”
Onwards, together!
