Maria Guralnik and Barbara Hauptman Join Art Management Program

Purchase, NY-September  2, 2009-In order to strengthen its Arts Management program, Provost Damian Fernandez announced today that Purchase College has hired two performing arts professionals to be Visiting Assistant Professors, Maria Guralnik and Barbara Hauptman.  “We welcome Professors Hauptman and Guralnik, who bring practical working experience in the arts to our program, and contribute to making Arts Management a significant component of the Purchase College curriculum.”

As General Manager of the Van Cliburn Foundation for the last sixteen years, Maria Guralnik oversaw career development for the winners of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition including the contracting and servicing of all U.S. engagements and coordination of international tours following each quadrennial competition. She also served as artistic administrator for the Foundation, responsible for contracting and producing the regionally acclaimed Cliburn Concerts series and overseeing production of many aspects of the Cliburn Competition, the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, and related special events and educational programs.

Ms. Guralnik began her professional career at Columbia Artists Management where she assisted in the management of such artists/attractions as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Horacio Gutierrez, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Moscow Virtuosi, and the Orchestre National de France. She has also facilitated programs and seminars to train orchestra managers through her work at the American Symphony Orchestra League (1992-93) and was selected to be an Arts Management Fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts in January 1992.  In January 2007, she joined the faculty at Texas Christian University to teach core courses and assist in developing its arts administration degree program for undergraduates.

The daughter of classical pianist and actor Robert Guralnik, Ms. Guralnik was born in the Hudson Valley (Cornwall, New York) and graduated in 1985 from New York University with a major in flute performance. She was the recipient of a Mandel Scholarship at Case Western Reserve University where she earned a Masters Degree in the Management of Non-Profit Organizations in 1992.  She has served as president of the North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (NAPAMA) where she took a lead role in developing educational programs for its diverse membership, a dedicated docent at the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, and is a long-standing board member of Lake Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. Maria devotes her free time to husband, Sevan Melikyan, former marketing director for the Van Cliburn Foundation, and their eleven-year-old son, Robert Edward.

Barbara Hauptman was the Executive Director of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers for twelve years.  While at the independent labor union, she was instrumental in restructuring the Broadway contract, pursing major property rights issues, doubling the membership as well as enhancing the programming of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. Prior to her appointment at SSDC, Ms. Hauptman was the Executive Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

As Executive Director of the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Dutchess County, New York, she established a residency with the Acting Company; introduced the community to emerging contemporary artists and orchestrated the theater's 125th Anniversary celebration.  Producing, managing, and writing for television took Barbara away from the live performing arts during the mid-80.  As Vice-President, Manager of Daytime Programming for Saatchi and Saatchi Compton Advertising, she represented Procter and Gamble's interests in daytime television serials. Other professional experience includes being Director of Operations for the Theatre Development Fund and TKTS booth, and an Arts Analyst for the New York State Council on the Arts in the late 70s, where she helped nurture many theaters that are today among the mainstays of the industry.

Barbara produced Twyla Tharp on Broadway as Executive Director of her Dance Company and was general manager at the Williamstown Theater Festival.  A graduate of the Yale School of Drama with a MFA in Theater Administration, she has been an adjunct professor at SUNY/ New Paltz, NYU and a lecturer at Yale University.

As a consultant for theatre, dance and for private arts foundations, she has advised performing arts companies throughout the United States. Her Board of Directors service includes Past President of Second Stage Theatre Company, Dance Theatre Workshop and Bard Music Festival. Barbara has served on local, regional and statewide arts councils as a panelist, and been published by the Foundation for the Extension and Development of the American Professional Theatre and the Yale Journal of Regulation. She has been a Broadway Tony Voter since 1996.

Barbara is married to Jonathan Falk, an economist and Vice President at NERA Consulting in New York City.

Associate Dean, Jon Esser believes that “this addition to our faculty will create great excitement among our Arts Management students”.