NEW CEO • Looking forward to guiding La Jolla Music Society beyond pandemic

with him,” Rosenthal said.

“Todd loves opera and is deeply knowledgeable about orchestral music. His love of the arts and his deeprooted connection to San Diego are significant advantages — and a great opportunity for La Jolla Music Society.”

Schultz will hit the ground running, even though the society recently canceled two of its scheduled January concerts because of the coronavirus and rescheduled another two for its 2021-22 season. In addition, jazz great Wynton Marsalis’ Jan. 23 and 24 performances with his band at, respectively, the Balboa Theater and the society’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center will now be held at a yet-to-be announced drive-in concert location on those same dates.

The fate of the society’s February through June concerts will be decided on a month-to-month basis, Rosenthal said. She envisions working closely with Schultz to help the organization pivot as necessary through these unpredictable times and move ahead.

“In the short term, I would say that when it feels like the world is falling apart is absolutely the best time to plan for future, because it enables you to hit the ground running when things start getting better,” Schultz said.

“So, making lemonade out of lemons, we can use this this time of streamed and socially distanced performances to keep the organization going — and to really plan for rolling things back out when life can become more normal again. The short-term goal is to work with the society’s staff and board to achieve that and to really build on the work they’ve been doing already.

“I believe we should leave something better than we found it. I already have some ideas in mind that are my personal goals to take the society to the next level. Some of those goals have to do with our endowment and ticket sales. Some of that will depend on what goals Leah and Inon Barnatan (the music director of the society’s annual SummerFest) have and what they’ll do, artistically, to take us to a level that further some of their aspirations. The society already has a healthy national presence because of SummerFest and what the organization accomplishes year-round.”

Schultz grew up in the Kansas farming community of Trousdale, population 16, where he listened to classical music while listening to the radio on his family’s tractor. A trained classical pianist, he has a 1976 Yamaha upright piano in his Point Loma home and plays it daily.

A graduate of Kansas State University, Schultz has a dual degree in German and mass communications, with an advertising emphasis. He was the Atlanta Opera’s director of marketing and public relations from 1989 to 1994, followed by a six-year stint with San Diego Opera and four years with LA Opera, the fourthlargest opera company in the nation.

“I found that I love fundraising and connecting people to something they love,” Schultz said. “It’s a chance for people who deeply care about the arts to support something they really believe in. ... There is no better way for an organization to achieve its artistic goals than to have a financially secure foundation, and that excites me.”