Our Leadership

April Nyman was born in Pensacola, FL. She graduated from the University of West Florida with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Marketing. After graduation, she worked as an Event Planner and Marketing Director in both the Hotel and Mall industries. While working in these corporate positions, she also served in numerous volunteer capacities in the Arts. Ms. Nymanl led a 5-year development campaign to support an emerging Cultural Arts Center. As a result of this positive experience, she moved from a corporate career to one in the non-profits. She has served as Executive Director for the Fiesta of Five Flags Celebration, Navy League, and for the CFC United Way Campaign.

April is a 2009 Executive Leadership Series graduate for Leadership Anne Arundel and chairs the Cultural Arts Day for the Flagship class annually. She was named as one of five Anne Arundel “Women of the Year” in 2010 by the Capital Gazette. Ms. Nyman is also a grants panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council; is a member of the Annapolis Rotary Club and the 21st Century Club; and serves on the Boards of Anne Arundel County Visitors Center, 4 Rivers Heritage of Anne Arundel County, and Main Street Annapolis Partners. She is the current President of the Community Arts Agencies of Maryland (CAAM).

Ms. Nyman and her family moved to Annapolis 8 years ago. She assumed the position with the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County in fall 2007. She has three children; Logan, 20; Abby, 18; and Lizzie 15. All three children are active in the arts.

Hometown
Pensacola, FL

Cultural Pursuits
Support and attend, as many artists and performances as possible!

Hidden Skill
Cooking

Secretly wants to be a…
Chef

Marva Jo Camp is an attorney in private practice. Her specialties include governmental relations, real estate transactions and land use, not-for-profit governance, community and economic development and minority and women-owned business. Locally, Ms. Camp works as included serving Director of Government and Community Outreach for Bowie State University and as a Lobbyist for the Prince George’s County Council. Ms. Camp is very involved in community service. She serves as Pro Bono Counsel for a number of community organizations, including the Prince George’s Tennis and Education Foundation and the Democratic Central Committee. She also serves as Chairperson of Leadership Prince George’s, Vice Chair for the Prince George’s Economic Development Corporation, Trustee for Maryland Citizens for the Arts, and Panel Member for Arts in Public Places. Ms. Camp previously served as President of the Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council.

She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia School of Law. She is the proud mother of Jordan Alexandria, 16 and Taylor Jonai, 14. The family resides in Prince George’s County.

An established leader in artistic programming, technology innovations, and business management, Singh has curated events ranging from major international festivals, to pop culture events, to children’s shows, all with the intention of connecting artists to communities.

Carla Du Pree is a fiction writer, literary consultant, state arts ambassador, and speaker, whose short stories and excerpts from her work-in-progress, Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, have appeared in Callaloo, Potomac Review, a Special Fiction and Poetry edition of City Paper– Baltimore, and anthologies The Spirit of Pregnancy and Street Lights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience.

Ms. Du Pree is the Executive Director of CityLit Project, a small literary nonprofit that nurtures readers and writers throughout the region. She was appointed to the Maryland State Arts Council, served as the Vice Chair, and the Chair of the Diversity Outreach Committee, and completes a six-year stint as a counselor in 2017. She’s currently on the One Maryland One Book Selection Committee (a second time), and has served as a county and state judge for the flourishing Poetry Out Loud, NEA’s national poetry competition. She produced Raising Our Voices: Womyn Out Loud, a reading devoted to diverse voices. Ms. Du Pree’s speaking engagements include tributes to Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison – all with the Furious Flower Poetry Center, The Baltimore Arts Society, in a tribute to Lucille Clifton, and the Baltimore debut of Listen to Your Mother speaker series. Ms. Du Pree has spoken before the National Association of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) about the benefits and necessity of diversity and inclusivity, and worked as a parent liaison for the Howard County public middle schools. She was an adjunct professor and independent thesis advisor at The Johns Hopkins University part-time graduate writing seminars in Fiction.

For her work in progress, Ms. Du Pree is the recipient of a 2016 Rubys Artist Project Grant in the literary arts, a 2017 Poetry Foundation Fellow, a 2017 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, and won a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction in 2007. As Founding Fiction Editor of Shooting Star Review, she edited the most sought after issue in the 14 year history of the literary magazine. She’s written, directed and produced two plays (The Era of Black Women at the University of Pittsburgh and Believe for 45 middle schoolers at a Howard County private school), and happily joined a women’s conversation about fashion by contributing to Women in Clothes, edited by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton. In 2010, she was invited to join an illustrious group of literary scholars, poets and writers called Wintergreen Women. Ms. Du Pree is the former executive director of HoCoPoLitSo and producer of The Writing Life. She holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from The Johns Hopkins University. An avid arts advocate, she supports artists nationally and throughout the state, and continues to empower women artists.

Hometown
Willingboro, New Jersey

Cultural Pursuits
Literature

Hidden Skill
Jewelry making

Secretly wants to be a…
A filmmaker— if I had time, and because stories come to me visually.
An astronomer in another life, because I have always looked at the sky with true wonder.

Carole Alexander is a resident of Annapolis, Maryland and formerly of Prince George’s County. She has been active in arts advocacy for the last twenty years. She is an independent consultant specializing in creative special events, marketing, fundraising and community outreach. Carole attributes her professional successes to serving with creative people on numerous boards, including the Maryland State Arts Council, Maryland Citizens for the Arts and the Art education in Maryland Schools Alliance.

Hometown
Langley Park, MD

Cultural Pursuits
Collecting visionary and outside art and popup books

Hidden Skill
Interior design

Secretly wants to be a…
On a NASCAR pit crew

Terri Allen currently serves as the Executive Director of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts (CAAPA) a 501c3 non-profit arts organization dedicated to help “Bring Color to the Classics” by supporting and helping to promote Black Classical musicians and others in the performing arts. Under her leadership, she has helped broaden CAAPA’s reach to include national and international exposure, partnerships, and programs including: music scholarships, a year-round performance series, the Opera for Fun Youth Outreach Program, REACH International, and a national MasterClass Series, where she partners with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) music departments throughout the U.S.A.

Doreen Bolger, former Director of The Baltimore Museum of Art for 17 years,led the BMA through a Strategic Plan that redefined its artistic focus as nineteenth century, modern, and contemporary art; placed greater emphasis on the riches of the Museum’s renowned art collections; initiated a series of high profile, BMA-organized scholarly exhibitions that have traveled nationally; made a renewed commitment to arts education and community engagement with the Museum; and called for increasing the Museum’s fundraising capacity. Ms. Bolger also played a leadership role in the region’s cultural community, serving as Chair of the WYPR Community Advisory Board, and as a Board member of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, Maryland Citizens for the Arts, and the Charles Street Development Corporation. She is also a member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee of the U.S. Mint.

Previously, Ms. Bolger served as Director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design. She had a long curatorial career, first at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and then at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. With a Ph.D. in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, she has published extensively on American painting, drawings, and decorative arts.

Hometown
Far Rockaway, New York

Cultural Pursuits
Visual Art

Hidden Skill
Drawing and painting books as gifts for friends

Secretly wants to be a…
Writer

Ardath Cade, a longtime resident of Anne Arundel County, began her Maryland governmental career as County Administrator of Charles County. Thereafter she served on the State House staff of Acting Governor Blair Lee. During a the administration of Governor Hughes, as Assistant Secretary of the Dept. of Economic and Community Development she oversaw housing and cultural programs , including the Maryland State Arts Council. Later, while a senior administrator in the Anne Arundel County Government, she was appointed by Governor Schaefer to membership on the Arts Council, and served as its Chairman in the late 90’s.

Ms. Cade has been an MCA Board member since 1998 and has served as treasurer and vice chairman.

While not a professional artist or arts administrator, Ms. Cade, a harpist during her youth, and a photography enthusiast, continues as a strong supporter of diverse arts organizations, co-chaired Maryland Arts Day for several years, and is active in the advocacy efforts of MCA’s support of arts funding.

Hometown
Cincinnati, Ohio

Cultural Pursuits
Photography, Coral Singing

Hidden Skill
Planning and managing capital projects— buildings!

Secretly wants to be a…
Life’s been a great ride— not looking for more

Navasha Daya performs, speaks, and consults nationally and internationally utilizing art and culture as a tool for violence prevention, conflict resolution, self-care and healing from trauma. On stage, Ms. Daya embodies the indigenous feminine spirit and inspires women throughout the world. Grammy-Award winning songstress India Arie described Ms. Daya’s voice as “the true definition of soulful.” She was nominated for female vocalist of the year for the Soultracks Reader’s Choice Awards and has charted at #2 on both Japan’s jazz and dance iTunes charts numerous times. In addition to her solo career as an indie-soul artist, Ms. Daya toured from 2013-2015 as a guest artist, singing with the Grammy Award winning a capella group “Sweet Honey In The Rock.”

Ms. Daya provides services and learning for the mind, body, and spirit, and holds sacred, the beauty of all spiritual paths, faiths and cultures of the world. She is knowledgeable and trained in a variety of spiritual paths and is a transformation agent who uses her spiritual and artistic training to assist in the daily re-birth process of those she serves. Dedicated to the healing of the community, she is Co-Founder & Director of the Healing & Performing Arts of the Youth Resiliency Institute providing an array of programming, trainings and services to assist others in healing from trauma and uses her art to serve families in Public Housing in Baltimore, MD and in East Cleveland, OH. Ms. Daya is also the director of the Cherry Hill Arts & Music Festival in South Baltimore. Navasha is a board member of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, a steering committee member of the Baltimore Arts Education Coalition, a member of the international working group Feminist Alliance for Rights and a member of The Recording Academy.

Hometown
Cleveland, OH

Cultural Pursuits
Music; contemporary and indigenous; bass guitar; painting; vegan cuisine

Hidden Skill
Baby whisperer

Secretly wants to be a…
Time traveler

Mark Hanson joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as President & CEO in April 2022 following successful tenures at the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony that were marked by notable music director appointments, restored balanced budgets, improved internal cultures, significant revenue growth, and deepened community access and impact. His passion for making orchestras more accessible and relevant led to the launch of the San Francisco Symphony’s first multi-constituency Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Workgroup and the Houston Symphony’s groundbreaking Community-Embedded Musician program that placed salaried musicians in schools, social service and healthcare settings as teaching artists and performers.

Over his first four months in Baltimore, Mark helped the BSO complete a multi-year Music Director search process and successfully announce the appointment of 30-year-old Jonathon Heyward, who will serve as Music Director Designate during the 2022/23 season before assuming the full role of Music Director at the beginning of the 2023/24 season. Heyward’s appointment received wide-spread international coverage, including articles in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Banner, NY Times, and Washington Post. Early efforts to expand the Baltimore Symphony’s audience and community partnerships are rooted in a “Hall for All” initiative that celebrates the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall’s versatility and Baltimore’s vibrant arts scene.

Mark earned a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies from Harvard University following studies in Cello Performance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. As an Orchestra Management Fellow, a program under the auspices of the League of American Orchestras, he trained at the NY Philharmonic, Houston Symphony and Syracuse Symphony. His continuing education has included participation in the Advancing Racial Justice In Organizations learning series offered by the Interaction Institute for Social Change and the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management program at Harvard Business School.

Edgar Herrera is an accomplished arts administrator and entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in the North American cultural, social, and private sectors. Edgar holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s in Arts Administration and an MBA, both from the University of Cincinnati.

In 2004 Edgar was awarded the prestigious Management Fellowship from the League of American Orchestras, undertaking special projects with The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Aspen Music Festival & School, The Atlanta Symphony, and The Elgin Symphony.

Edgar was appointed and began as the newly appointed Executive Director at the height of the 2020 pandemic year initially remotely from Mexico City and finally managing an international relocation across closed boarders to join us in Maryland. He has since been joined by his wife Luz and his twin daughters.

As the President and CEO of Strathmore, Monica Jeffries Hazangeles ensures the overall success and sustainability of the organization’s strategy rooted in service to the community and its many stakeholders and partners. She is deeply committed to the institution’s programs, employees, and facilities, including the 1976-seat Concert Hall, the Education Center, the historic Mansion, and Strathmore’s first offsite venue, AMP at Pike & Rose, a 230-seat live music and dining space.
Since 1994, and with Strathmore Founder Eliot Pfanstiehl, Jeffries Hazangeles has led the transformation of the once modest non-profit into the state of Maryland’s most prolific, multidisciplinary arts presenter and producer, dedicated to education and to the full engagement of its community.

Jeffries Hazangeles plays an active role in the community as a graduate and volunteer of Leadership Maryland and Leadership Montgomery, an Advisory Council member of FutureLink, and President of the Montgomery County Arts Advocates. She has been named one of Washingtonian Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017).

She has worked as an arts professional for more than 25 years and has held positions with The Smithsonian Associates and The Friends of Chamber Music in Kansas City, MO. Jeffries Hazangeles holds a B.M. degree in Flute Performance from The Florida State University (1989), a M.M. degree in Flute Performance from The University of Missouri-Kansas City (1991), and the M.A. degree in Arts Management from American University (1996).

She and her husband, John P. Hazangeles, reside in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Suzan Jenkins has been a visionary leader in the non-profit arts and culture sector for over twenty years, serving in executive positions at the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution and the Recording Industry Association of America.

A Peabody Award winning producer of the radio series Let the Good Times Roll for Public Radio International and a recipient of the Washington Green Giant Award for co-founding the Nonprofit Energy Alliance, Jenkins has been recognized for her leadership and entrepreneurial endeavors, including by the Gazette of Politics and Business, Women Business Leaders of Maryland, Jazz Alliance International, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival and Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Currently, she serves on the Board of Nonprofit Montgomery; as a Mentor for Women of Color in the Arts; on the Community Advisory Council of WETA and on the American University Arts Management Advisory Council. She has been a Fellow with National Arts Strategies: Chief Executive Program and is a former Board member of Culture Capital and of DataArts, previously known as the Cultural Data Project.

As an educator, Jenkins has served as Executive in Residence in the College of Music at Loyola University and as Adjunct Professor at both American and George Mason Universities. Suzan Jenkins holds an Honorary Degree in Public Service from Montgomery College, MD; a BS in Psychology and Management, and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

George Johnston rejoins the Maryland Citizens Board after a decade plus hiatus. He had previously served on the Board for an extended period, and served as its Chair for a number of years. George recently retired from the Venable law firm where he served as its Chief Operating Officer. He has been active in the arts for decades, having chaired Arts Education in Maryland Schools, and on the boards of the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Opera.

A lifelong arts activist, Julie Madden currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Maryland State Arts Council, the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property, and the Maryland Historical Society, in addition to Maryland Citizens for the arts. She is also an ex-officio board member of the Walters Art Museum representing the Honorable Alan H. Kittleman, Howard County Executive, and of the Baltimore Museum of Art representing the Honorable Larry Hogan, Jr., Governor of the State of Maryland.

As Maryland’s Director of Arts and Community Outreach, she implemented cultural initiatives for the office of the Governor from 2003-2007.

From 2007-2009 she served on the Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts Accessions Committee of the Baltimore Museum of Art, and from 2010-2012 served on the Decorative Arts Accessions Committee of the same institution. She is currently a member of the Maryland Historical Society’s Museum Committee.

Ms. Madden holds an M.A. in Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian-Corcoran College of Arts and Design.

Dr. Julia Marciari-Alexander became Executive Director at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland on April 1, 2013. The first woman to hold that post, Dr. Marciari-Alexander came to Baltimore with more than 15 years of experience. In 2008 she was named Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at The San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), where she oversaw all aspects of the museum’s curatorial and publications programs from 2008 to 2013. She also served as SDMA’s Interim Co-Director from 2009 to 2010 and Deputy Director for Education from 2010 to 2011. While at SDMA, Ms. Marciari-Alexander led the team that conceived, planned, and implemented major reinstallations of every public space within its permanent collection galleries and ran a major international exhibition program. Additionally, she was a founding member of a “Learning Partnership” focused on community, museums, and cultural arts that works to create a bridge between Balboa Park and the communities commonly called the Diamond Neighborhoods in Southeastern San Diego.

Prior to moving to San Diego, she was at the Yale Center for British Art, first as a curator in the Paintings & Sculpture Department from 1996 to 2002 and then Associate Director for Exhibitions & Publications from 2002 to 2013. In 2007, her exhibition, Howard Hodgkin Paintings 1992-2007, was named one of the ten best exhibitions of 2007 by Time. The San Diego installation of Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman, co-organized with the Cincinnati Art Museum, was named a top ten California exhibition of 2011 by LA Times critic Christopher Knight. A specialist in the arts and visual culture of Britain and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, she holds a PhD in the History of Art from Yale University and a MA in French Literature from NYU. She received her BA from Wellesley College in 1989.

Hometown
Claremont, California

Cultural Pursuits
Visual art, Music (violin and singing)

Hidden Skill
Sewing

Secretly wants to be a…
Museum director… I love my job and I love Baltimore!

Richard Montgomery has been the Director of Legislative and Governmental Relation for the Maryland State Bar Association since 2003. He previously served as Deputy Legislative Director for Maryland Governors William Donald Schaefer and Parris N. Glendening. His principal issues areas of expertise were housing, environment, civil rights, social services, and domestic violence prevention.

Mr. Montgomery is a member of the Board of Directors of Art with a Heart, the Green and Health Homes Initiative (formerly known as the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning), and Maryland Government Relations Association. He was the Chairman of the Government Relations Section of the National Association of Bar Executives from 2010-2011. Mr. Montgomery has also been a voluntary instructor for the Charm City Youth Lacrosse League since 2012. He is an avid photographer, and has donated his photographs to a number of nonprofit organizations in the Baltimore area.

Hometown
Baltimore, MD

Cultural Pursuits
Photography

Hidden Skill
Urban Planning

Secretly wants to be a…
Urban planner or photographer

Shelley Morhaim grew up in Baltimore and currently resides in Pikesville. She has served for 6 years on the Maryland State Arts Council, including 2 years as its Chair. Trained as a lawyer, she is a writer, filmmaker, musician, and longtime civic activist. Among her credits are the award-winning documentary “The Next Industrial Revolution” and the short film made for Arts Education in Maryland Schools (AEMS) “Hard Fun: Transforming American Education Through the Arts.” She has served on the boards of the Baltimore Jewish Council, the Women’s Institute of Notre Dame, and the Democratic Party State Central Committee. She is the co-author with her husband Dr. Dan Morhaim of “The Better End”, a book about end-of-life decision making. She plays the folk harp as a therapeutic music practitioner at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore. She and Dan have 3 adult children and 2 granddaughters.

Benny Russell started clarinet at 7, tenor at 12, and by 15, was sitting in with the Morgan State University bands, In 1976 he enrolled there and started gigging for the Manhattans, the Four Tops, and others. After graduation, Benny moved to New York and formed a jazz orchestra called the New York Association, and besides arranging and performing off-Broadway, he’s worked with Otis Rush, Harry Belafonte, Mino Cinelu, Craig Harris, Jimmy Owens, Junior Cook, Mor Thiam and others. He was also heard on The Cosby Show and A Different World. In 1995, Russell chaired the jazz division at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where he launched workshops in the Brooklyn public school system, the Charlie Parker Birthday Festival, and performances with the Next Legacy Orchestra, his current band with co- director Jorge Sylvester.

Leon Seemann, CFRE, has over 25 years of experience helping non-profits and private businesses grow and thrive financially and organizationally by ensuring that they are well funded, well managed and well respected. His passion for solving business problems spans a broad range of organizations, non-profits and privately owned businesses, including those focused on the arts, education, youth, the Jewish community, finance, economic empowerment, and older adults.

Leon’s work as a management consultant focuses on helping organizations and their people be more effective today than they were yesterday. He brings his energy and skills as a trainer and facilitator to work with teams of all types – including inter-generational, inter-faith and cross-disciplinary – to identify and resolve the challenges that often prevent them from achieving success. Other services he provides includes: organization realignment, interim leadership, crisis management, strategic planning, financial and fundraising strategies and executive searches.

Leon is the proud father of 4 with the puns to prove it. He spent the pandemic learning to be a long-distance runner (up to 4 miles a day) and how to be a better spouse and friend. Every situation has a correct hat and he strives to bring joy into his everyday work. Leon believes when we all get to be our full selves, we get the best results.

Leon shares with the broader community, by serving on boards, volunteering and coaching youth sports.

Smith arrives at the Creative Alliance with over twenty years of experience in arts non-profit and business management. His business experience includes executive operations, fundraising, staff management, and long-range planning, with additional experience in arts education, community engagement and community building events, and arts programming. Most recently at Minnesota Public Radio and the Fitzgerald Theater, Smith was accountable for revenue goals, newly imagined guest experiences that led to increased sales, and was the producer for the monthly community conversations series, In Focus, which centered conversations on issues impacting BIPOC communities. Smith started his career as an actor, director and choreographer, and will be bringing these experiences and his passion for the performing arts to the Creative Alliance as we continue to support diverse arts programming in Baltimore. Smith’s career has been committed to making arts and cultural programming accessible to all people through a mission-based lens of collaboration and strong fiscal management.

Stephanie Ybarra began her tenure as Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage in 2018. Prior to working and playing in the Charm City, Stephanie served The Public Theater as the Director of Special Artistic Projects, where she led the Mobile Unit and Public Forum programs. Her career started in her home state of Texas, working with Dallas Theater Center and Dallas Children’s Theater. During her time in New York, she co-founded the Artists’ Anti-Racism Coalition, a grassroots organizing effort to dismantle systems of oppression in the Off-Broadway community. Stephanie’s awards include the Josephine Abady Award for producing from New York’s League of Professional Theatre Women, the Congressional Award for Achievement in Excellence from Zara Aina, and for her sustained work around diversity and inclusion, she received the prestigious Nation Builder Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators in 2018.

Safiyah Cheatam (she/her) is a Baltimore-based conceptual and social practice artist, researcher, digital storyteller, arts educator and administrator. For her work as a co-producer of her awards-nominated podcast OBSIDIAN, she is the recipient of a Red Bull Arts Microgrant and Rubys Artist Grant by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Safiyah has notably collaborated with the Baltimore Museum of Art, Morgan State University Center for the Study of Religion in the City, Black Islam Syllabus, Sweaty Eyeballs Animation, and has recently completed a curatorial internship at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Prior to joining MCA, Safiyah was the Communications and Digital Media Specialist at Morgan State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and the City where she produced creative content to support social justice initiatives and grassroots organizations throughout Baltimore City. In previous years, Safiyah enjoyed arts advocacy content development through being a Media Instructor with Wide Angle Youth Media where she led courses in graphic design and animation, partnering with entities such as Baltimore City Public Schools, Disability Rights-MD and ACLU-MD.

Safiyah is passionate about arts education, racial equity, and social justice. She currently serves as a Trustee of the philanthropic Awesome Foundation, Baltimore, and on the Islamic Art Advisory Committee at the Walters Art Museum. Safiyah holds a Master of Fine Arts in Intermedia and Digital Art from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Media and Film from Towson University.

Hometown
Newark, New Jersey and Baltimore, Maryland

Cultural Pursuits
Digital and visual storytelling

Hidden Skill
Great sense of direction and smell

Secretly wants to be a…
Architect and dancer

Contact Safiyah

Nicholas Cohen has served as the Executive Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts since March of 2017. In this capacity, Nicholas is in charge of coordinating advocacy efforts on behalf of the entire arts community in Maryland. These efforts help ensure increase funding at the state level for the Maryland State Arts Council and help bring increase access to the arts for all Marylanders.

Before coming to MCA, he served as Director of Community Engagement & Education Program for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, overseeing programming that provided access to music and arts for the entire Mid-Atlantic region. Most recently, Nicholas served on Baltimore City Mayor Catherine Pugh’s Youth Development Committee which was charged with developing a comprehensive plan for Baltimore City youth.

An avid musician, Nicholas is currently the contrabassoonist with the National Philharmonic Orchestra in Bethesda, Maryland, and has performed with the Annapolis Symphony, Maryland Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles throughout North America. Nicholas received his Bachelors of music with a minor in developmental Psychology from the University of Florida and a Master of Music Performance in Bassoon from Carnegie Mellon University.

Hometown
London, England

Cultural Pursuits
Music

Hidden Skill
Balancer extraordinaire

Secretly wants to be a…
An Astronaut

Contact Nicholas

Amanda Morell has been with MCA since March 2018.  Prior to joining MCA, Amanda spent 3 years with the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, where she managed the Exhibits and Arts in Education Programs.  During her time at ACAAC, two new exhibit locations were added to the program.

Amanda has always had a love of the performing arts.  A Baltimore native, she attended Baltimore School for the Arts for high school where she studied music and flute instruction under Sarah Nichols.  She studied ballet at “Let’s Dance Studio” in Towson for 13 years before leaving for college in Ohio.  After taking an economics course at Ohio Wesleyan University, Amanda decided to come back to Baltimore to finish her degree.  She graduated from the University of Baltimore with a B.S. in Business Administration.  Upon finishing her degree, she was selected as one of ten Urban Arts Leadership Program (UALP) Fellows in the class of 2014/2015.  At the same time, she began working with Amy Hornberger at Baltimore School of Dance.  After completing the UALP fellowship, Amanda was hired by the organization with which she was placed, ACAAC.

Having grown up in Baltimore with access to a rich arts education, Amanda knew from a young age that arts advocacy was paramount to a well rounded education.  She is happy to be apart of an organization who’s mission acknowledges the role the arts play in the education of children and quality of life of all people.

Hometown
Baltimore, Maryland

Cultural Pursuits
Music and Dance

Hidden Skill
Operating a 35 mm film projector

Secretly wants to be a…
koala

Contact Amanda