Bringing Ballet To Farms In (Where Else?) Vermont

“[Charles] Pregger, a ballet teacher, said Farm to Ballet was born after he led outdoor classes at Oakledge Park in Burlington. He saw that alfresco ballet was possible and joked that he’d like to do something like a flash-mob-styled performance halfway up Mount Philo. That lighthearted thought became a more meaningful and concrete plan to bring dance to Vermont farms.”

Atlanta’s High Museum Gets A New Director

At the Philbrook, Randall Suffolk boosted attendance by 63 percent and almost tripled participation in educational programs. “We’ve tried to reinvent our relationship with our community,” he said. Suffolk spearheaded the planning for Philbrook Downtown, a 30,000-square-foot satellite facility that opened in 2013.

Vic Firth, 85, The ‘Stradivari Of Drumsticks’

Besides spending four decades as the Boston Symphony’s principal tympanist (Seiji Ozawa called him “the single greatest percussionist anywhere in the world”), he decided in the 1960s to design and build his own sticks, feeling that what was on the market was inadequate for the subtleties of serious symphonic and ensemble music. Little did he know then that he was setting the gold standard for percussionists in all genres all over the world.