UChicago Presents leader departing for New Mexico
Amy Iwano, executive director of the University of Chicago Presents series, is departing for the mountains of New Mexico.
In August Iwano will leave Hyde Park to take up her new post this fall as executive and artistic director of Performance Santa Fe.
“Leading UChicago Presents over the past nine years has truly been a joy and a privilege,” said Iwano in a statement released on Wednesday. “One of the greatest opportunities of this position has been the chance to bring a diversity of high-quality music to such knowledgeable and appreciative audiences as those found at UCP concerts on Friday evenings in Mandel Hall, the Logan Center, Rockefeller Chapel, and International House. I will miss sharing music with you!”
Iwano, an Ohio native, has been a high-profile fixture on Chicago’s classical scene for nearly three decades. From 1993, she served as executive director of Chicago Chamber Musicians for 19 years before taking the reins of the University of Chicago concert series in 2012.
Iwano’s savvy classical programming deftly mixed chamber cornerstones by Mozart, Schubert and Brahms with quirky underrated rarities including Fred Rzewksi’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! and Shostakovich’s complete Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues, both of which were CCR top performances of the year. She also kept the torch alight for vocal recitals, an underrepresented genre on Chicago’s music scene.
Details of the 2021-22 UChicago Presents season, the final programmed by Iwano, will be announced later this summer. A search for a successor will soon be underway.
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