Scottsdale Arts Names New CEO

Louisiana arts executive Gerd Wuestemann, D.M.A., has been appointed the new president and CEO of Scottsdale Arts. Wuestemann, who has served as executive director of the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, La., since 2008, was a unanimous board choice. He will begin his new duties on March 19, succeeding Scottsdale Arts’ interim president and CEO Mike Miller, who will continue to serve on the Scottsdale Arts board.

In his new job, Wuestemann will oversee 71 full-time and 104 part-time staffers. Over the past nine years, he has led the transformation of a small arts council into the Acadiana Center for the Arts, which in 2016 and 2017 won the Governor’s Culture Award. He developed public and private funding that allowed the arts center to build two new facilities, hire more staff and create a strong board to develop a vision and implement it. AcA has since quadrupled in size, annexed another arts organization and created a growing endowment, along with building local, regional and national partnerships.

Wuestemann holds a doctorate of musical arts from The University of Arizona, a master’s of musical arts from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a master’s of music from Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt, Germany. The new job represents a kind of homecoming for Wuestemann, who said he developed a strong affinity for Arizona while working on his doctorate at UA.

Scottsdale Arts’ mission is to create diverse visual, performing and public arts experiences that engage the community. The organization operates Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Scottsdale Public Art. It administers arts and cultural affairs for the City of Scottsdale and provides an education and outreach program in the form of tours, hands-on activities, master classes, lectures, workshops and classroom-based and community outreach activities.

PHOTO COURTESY SCOTTSDALE ARTS

About Cindy Miller

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