Samantha M. Pollack
Director of Programming, Washington (DC) Performing Arts Society

Samantha M. Pollack, age 32 and director of programming at the Washington (DC) Performing Arts Society, thought she had her career all figured out. Growing up in Wilmette, IL, on Chicago’s North Shore, she studied trumpet and idolized the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s fabled brass and woodwind sections. Burl Lane, CSO bassoonist and saxophone player, was a close neighbor.

But as an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati/College-Conservatory of Music, her dream of joining an orchestra began to fade. “To have that kind of career, you had to eat, live, and breathe your instrument,” Pollack said. “I did that with music, but not my instrument.’’

An undergraduate course in arts management at Cincinnati changed her life. She learned that what happened offstage—in budget meetings, in negotiations with artists’ agents—was as fascinating to her as the performances themselves. After an internship at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pollack decided to look for a job with a smaller organization where she would be more closely involved with what happened on stage. She landed at the Washington Performing Arts Society in 2004 as programming and production coordinator and has climbed the ladder steadily ever since.

In 2007 she found herself alarmingly alone on the ascending rungs. Three out of her four colleagues, including her boss, left, and she was faced with putting a season together without really knowing exactly how.

“It was horrible,” she said, “but I knew it would be the best learning experience of my life.”

The Society, which was founded in 1965 as an inclusive organization open to all kinds of audiences and music, not only survived. It has thrived under Pollack’s leadership. Faced with a weak economy, she has forged partnerships with a prominent local gospel choir and Washington’s Shakespeare Theater Company. The Society’s seasons range from dance to classical to jazz and points far beyond. “The variety is what I love,” she said. “It’s always different.”

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