New arts director tapped for Cal
Jeremy Geffen, senior director and artistic adviser for Carnegie Hall, has been appointed as the new head of Cal Performances, the arts presenting organization affiliated with UC Berkeley.
Geffen, 44, will take the position as executive and artistic director on April 1. He succeeds Matías Tarnopolsky, who left Berkeley in August after nine years to lead the Philadelphia Orchestra.
“What attracted me to this position was the intersection of many strands of the arts, including music, dance and drama,” Geffen said in a phone interview with The Chronicle. “That and the intellectual curiosity of this community.
“New York is wonderful, but it can be difficult to get people’s attention. I notice this on the subway or the sidewalk — New Yorkers are so accustomed to fighting for their anonymity and their personal space that they rarely look up. You put on blinders to what is around you, whereas in Berkeley I was struck by the degree to which people are aware of, and open to, great attractions.”
During his 12 years at Carnegie, Geffen oversaw planning for about 160 annual performances in the hall. He was a key figure in the development
and expansion of Carnegie’s multidisciplinary festivals, including those on historical and geographical themes.
At Cal Performances, Geffen will be responsible for nearly 100 performances a year across a wide range of disciplines, including classical, jazz and world music, dance, theater and the spoken word.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Geffen grew up in Newport Beach (Orange County), and studied viola at the University of Southern California. But a repetitive stress injury to his right hand forced him to give up playing the instrument and find another way to make a career in music. That came through an internship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he discovered an interest in artistic programming.
“In retrospect, I realized that the timing was good, even though in the moment it felt like the end of the world,” he said. “As a violist, if you’re only interested in music written for your instrument, you’ll wind up with a collection of very few CDs. But once you start to do programming, then the world opens up, and you realize how much there is to discover.”
Before Carnegie Hall, Geffen did stints as an artistic administrator with the New York Philharmonic (2000-05) and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (2005-07). He chaired the nominating jury for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music that gave the award to composer Caroline Shaw for her “Partita.”
Geffen said he expects to move to Berkeley in March.