Auditorium names new chief executive

Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, currently the President and CEO of The Center for the Performing Arts and the Great American Songbook Foundation in Carmel, Indiana, has been named the new Chief Executive Officer of Chicago’s historic Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University.

She will be filling the position held by Brett Batterson until November 2015. Henry Fogel, who has been serving as Interim CEO since April of this year, will return to his position as Dean of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts as the transition in leadership officially takes place on Oct 3.

Castroverde Moskalenko, who was born in Cuba, and arrived in the United States with her family as political refugees when she was six, holds a BFA from the University of Memphis, Tn. and has what she describes as “a passion for the arts.”

“I am absolutely delighted to accept the position of Chief Executive Officer at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University,” said Castroverde Moskalenko. “I am captivated by the history and architecture of this National Historic Landmark, and am equally inspired by its mission, vision, and values of excellence, innovation, ethics, and diversity, the very values that have guided my career for 18 years. As a firm believer in the transformational power of the arts, it will be an honor and a privilege to lead the Auditorium Theatre into its next chapter.”

Castroverde Moskalenko joined Indiana’s Center for the Performing Arts in June 2012 and is credited with stabilizing spending, creating a strategic plan to guide the future of the organization, and adding programming and educational experiences that have expanded the Center’s reach and engaged a broader audience. She has been able to operate in the black for the three previous years and has increased the Center’s donor base while building on its programming and creative engagement efforts. While the Center has tried to create and attract events each day of the week throughout the year, revenues also increased from building and room rentals. During her first three years at the Center, individual donations increased 95%, corporate support increased 66%, and the Center launched the World Stage Series designed to celebrate the many cultures residing in Central Indiana. In 2013, her work at the Center earned her a Women of Influence award by the Indiana Business Journal.

Located on the campus of the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana, the Great American Songbook Foundation, established in 2007 (and previously known as the Michael Feinstein Foundation for the Education and Preservation of the Great American Songbook), preserves, promotes, and perpetuates the music of the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century.

Prior to her work at the Center, Castroverde Moskalenko served as Executive Director of the Germantown Performing Arts Centre in Tennessee where she erased an operating deficit, created a reserve fund, completed a five-year strategic plan in two years, doubled corporate support and quadrupled grant support. She successfully implemented strategies to diversify programming and audiences, and increased community programs by 279%. She also established a youth symphony orchestra which tripled enrollment in two years. In the summer of 2011, she led 52 members of the orchestra on a 17-day educational and cultural tour of China.

In a prepared statement, Roosevelt University President Dr. Ali R. Malekzadeh said: “I am so glad that Tania has decided to join the historic Auditorium Theatre as our CEO. She brings a wealth of experience to this position. She has been the CEO and the Executive Director of two outstanding performing arts centers in Carmel, Indiana and Germantown, Tennessee. Under her leadership, both centers have offered a variety of programs that expanded their audiences and brought innovative artists to the venues. Here in Chicago, Tania will be working with a team of experienced and talented staff and a devoted Board of Trustees to assure the future of the Auditorium Theatre is as bright as its history.”

For a more personal peek at the new CEO’s feelings about the arts visit www.arts.gov/50th/stories/tania-castroverde-moskalenko.