Board chairman hired to be interim director
The Center for Contemporary Arts hired its chairman of the board to be the organization’s paid interim executive director until a new executive director is brought on.
G. Sterling Zinsmeyer took on the executive director duties Dec. 4 after Stuart Ashman stepped away Nov. 30. Ashman had announced his resignation in September to become chief executive of the International Folk Art Market on Jan. 2.
Zinsmeyer said he anticipates his interim role will likely last three to six months. He has not decided if we will apply for the full-time job.
“It could be three weeks or three months,” he said last week.
Zinsmeyer joined the Center for Contemporary Arts Board of Directors in late 2016 and became its chairman in October 2017. He stepped down from the board to assume the interim executive director job.
Maria Gale is the new board chairwoman.
“Sterling’s extraordinary career experience, along with his rapport with our staff and familiarity with our inner workings, will ensure that CCA will operate seamlessly as we continue our search for our next executive director,” Gale said in a news release.
Zinsmeyer moved to Santa Fe in 2000 and joined the Center for Contemporary Arts board in 2016. The previous five years he worked on the opera Fellow Travelers. He brought on the composer, librettist and director and produced the Cincinnati Opera world premiere in June 2016.
Fellow Travelers has since been staged in 2018 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Minnesota Opera.
As Center for Contemporary Arts’s interim executive director, Zinsmeyer is keen on continuing the $500,000 capital campaign, for which about two-thirds has been raised, and being involved in the planning for the group’s 40th anniversary celebration, likely in August.
“The last four years, CCA has found its mettle, really become solid,” Zinsmeyer said.