Toya Lillard is Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience. She has directed plays, developed curricula, led advocacy efforts and implemented innovative teaching artist training programs both in and out of New York City schools. Prior to joining viBe, Toya served as Director of School Programs at The New York Philharmonic, in the Education Department, where she helped to develop its nationally recognized School Partnership Program. In addition to leading viBe, Toya is a facilitator of “difficult" conversations” around racial equity and inclusion; most recently having served as a reflection facilitator for The National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Anti-Racism as Organizational Compass Series.

Toya is part-time faculty at The New School, where she teaches Collaborative Theatre Practice, and serves on the Cultural Change Taskforce, as well as the Faculty and EISJ Committees. Toya serves on the Board of the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, where she is co-chair of the Roundtable’s TaskForce on Equity and Inclusion. Toya is also an Affiliate Representative on the Board of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance. Toya holds a B.A. from Vassar College, and an M.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

William is the co-director of the Institute for Transformative Mentoring. As a restorative justice practitioner William focuses is to heal, develop, and lead systems impacted individuals on a journey to rebuild community, decrease violence and incarceration. William is the founder of Neighborhood Benches, an organization increasing the presence of local neighborhood leadership to focus on youth violence and incarceration. He serves on the advisory boards of Public Allies NY, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, PS x18 in the Bronx, and as a member of the Restorative Roots Collaborative. William is a graduate of ITM and a 2019 Echoing Green Fellow. 

Robert Hurwitz served as President of Nonesuch for thirty-two years, beginning in September 1984. When he took over Nonesuch, it was a classical label and the home of the legendary Explorer series. After he became the head of the label, he redefined its role in contemporary classical music and modern composition, expanded its mission in world music, and began recording and releasing artists from a wide range of musical genres, including jazz, music theater, folk, bluegrass, and rock.

Among the artists he has signed or worked with are composers including John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Henryk Gorecki, Philip Glass, Adam Guettel, Nico Muhly, Astor Piazzolla, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewki, Stephen Sondheim, and John Zorn as well as performers and songwriters including Björk, Devendra Banhart, David Byrne, Jeremy Denk, Bill Frisell, Gipsy Kings, Richard Goode, Tigran Hamasyan, Kronos Quartet, Gidon Kremer, k.d. lang, Lake Street Dive, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Audra McDonald, Natalie Merchant, Stephin Merritt (and the Magnetic Fields), Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Mandy Patinkin, Punch Brothers, Randy Newman, Joshua Redman, Chris Thile, Dawn Upshaw, Caetano Veloso, and the World Saxophone Quartet.

The Boston Globe said, “Under Robert Hurwitz, Nonesuch Records has been an oasis of artistic excitement. When one picks up a Nonesuch CD, there is a sense of occasion, the feeling that the artists in question have been assembled not as an exercise in star power, but as an exercise in artistic exploration.” And the New York Times Magazine said, “In a business now largely run by accountants and M.B.A.’s, Hurwitz is, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, ‘one of the few left who practice the making of records as a craft.’”

Hurwitz has remained closely involved with Nonesuch’s creative activities as an Executive Producer on a dozen projects a year; he is also the Chairman Emeritus of the company. He has taught at the New School for more than a decade, and has been teaching at UCLA for the past few years as well.

Prior to arriving at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art as Curator of Education and now Interim Director, Makeba Dixon-Hill has held positions at museums of all sizes throughout the nation. Her work focuses on bringing the vision and mission of the museum to life by curating programming and engagement experiences that scaffold the institution’s world-class exhibitions and special projects.

In addition to her institutional work, Makeba is a writer, yoga instructor, and arts professional. Born and raised in Atlanta, she developed a love for the outdoors before she could walk or talk. With her family, she traversed the country and was first exposed to yoga and meditation from her mother. Makeba is a 200 YTT registered yoga instructor and is currently working on a series of books about mindfulness for children.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum sagittis mi eu elementum malesuada. Maecenas arcu felis, suscipit vitae mi in, posuere ultricies nunc. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante velit, condimentum eget erat a, suscipit porttitor nisl. Pellentesque in semper nunc. Duis ultricies lacus nec dolor elementum efficitur. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante velit, condimentum eget erat a, suscipit porttitor nisl. Pellentesque in semper nunc. Duis ultricies lacus nec dolor elementum efficitur.

Jelani Cobb is an American writer, author and educator. The Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, Cobb was previously an associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. Since 2015, he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker. He has received Fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford Foundations. He is also the recipient of the Walter Bernstein Award from the Writer’s Guild of America for his investigative series Policing the Police, which aired on PBS Frontline.

Photo credit:  ©2013 Peter Morenus/The University of Connecticut