Kristin Lancino, former artistic director of planning at New York’s Carnegie Hall and a longtime advocate of classical music programming for children, has been named president and artistic director of La Jolla Music Society, effective Thursday, Oct. 15. Lancino, who worked at Carnegie for 14 years following a position at artistic management firm IMG Artists, is scheduled to move from New York to San Diego in December and assume her post full-time in January. She has a lengthy relationship with Martha Gilmer, San Diego Symphony’s new CEO. She will also preside over the music society’s most pivotal development in decades. The group will move into its own $50 million concert hall, the Conrad Prebys Performing Art Center, with an opening scheduled for January of 2018. Lancino replaces Christopher Beach, who will serve as the group’s theater and development consultant during the Prebys center’s construction. Beach joined the music society in 2005.. Lancino, whose career in the arts spans 30 years, is currently an independent artistic and strategic consultant and served as vice president of G. Schirmer Inc. music publishing company, where she negotiated copyright issues in the performing arts. As the group’s director of education, she developed workshops led by artists such as Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel, Marilyn Horne and Isaac Stern. She also resurrected the group’s tradition of family concerts and directed the Carnegie Hall/Rockefeller International American Music Competition.
