The Knights announce Kristen Linfante as their new Executive Director

The Knights announce Kristen Linfante as their new Executive Director

Linfante will assume the role of Executive Director with The Knights beginning in January 2024

For Immediate Release — December 6, 2023 — The Knights are pleased to announce Kristen Linfante, Executive Director and Artistic Director for Chamber Music Pittsburgh, will join as the orchestra’s next Executive Director beginning January 1, 2024.

Knights Artistic Directors Colin and Eric Jacobsen share:

“We are so thrilled to have Kristen lead us into this next chapter for The Knights. Her extensive knowledge and experience as an arts administrator and leader, paired with her enthusiasm, passion, and artistry as a musician herself, will be key to helping the orchestra continue to realize creative programming, expand our audiences, and spread musical joy throughout the community.”

With the passion and global skill sets of both an administrator and professional musician, Linfante joins The Knights with over thirty years of experience in the artistic field as the former General Manager and Director of Artistic Operations and Touring for GRAMMY award-winning Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, and in her current role as the Executive Director and Artistic Director of Chamber Music Pittsburgh. Alongside her long-standing work as an arts administrator, Linfante holds a unique and valuable perspective as an active performer, playing viola with groups including Apollo’s Fire, and serving as both orchestral violist and Chair of the Player’s Committee of the internationally acclaimed Grand Teton Music Festival. She has a genuine commitment to artistic excellence, expansive and groundbreaking programming, and creating equity within the field.

Linfante says:

“Leading The Knights at this opportune moment and supporting its visionary artistic founders, Colin and Eric Jacobsen, feels like an ideal match to me. The Knights are breaking down musical barriers and expanding the concept of classical music, doing the work to make our field more equitable, diverse, and inclusive, both on and off the stage. This is exactly what I have dedicated my career to, and it will be my privilege to help this extraordinary group of musicians carry out their thoughtful, passionate work.”

Kristen Linfante’s appointment coincides with a momentous new chapter for The Knights as the group enters a vibrant 2024 season, which includes the continuation of the orchestra’s new ??multi-year initiative, the Rhapsody Project, inspired by the 2024 centennial of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as well as a new three-concert series at Carnegie Hall, presenting genre-defying programs at Zankel Hall with some of today's greatest musical minds, including Chris Thile, Wu Man, Magos Herrera, and many more.

More about Kristen Linfante

Equally at home as an arts leader and performing musician, Kristen Linfante has served as Executive Director of Chamber Music Pittsburgh, an internationally recognized presenter of chamber music, for the past ten years. During her time at Chamber Music Pittsburgh, she effectively grew the organization’s budget by over 80%, increased and diversified programming and educational initiatives, vastly increased ticket sales and fundraising, and forged strong community ties built on inclusion, accessibility, and creative, diverse programming of the highest level. Prior to joining Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Ms. Linfante served as both General Manager and Director of Artistic Operations and Touring for Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra. Early in her musical career, she also served in an administrative capacity for artist management firms including Dispeker Artists, Inc., & Schmidt Artists International, Inc. While residing in the Pittsburgh (PA) region, Ms. Linfante further developed her global leadership skills by serving as an elected official - Commissioner (Third Ward- Mt Lebanon/Pittsburgh). During her tenure, Ms. Linfante was promoted to the highest rank of Commission President.

Kristen holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School where she began her studies at the age of 14. She specializes in both modern and baroque viola and has been a member of the Grammy Award-winning Baroque ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, since 2005. Kristen has also served as a member of the Orchestra de Catania in Catania, Sicily, and has performed frequently with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Opera, and Ballet, Houston Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra. Ms. Linfante has also served as violist at the Grand Teton Music Festival, a globally renowned orchestral and chamber music festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the past 27 seasons.

In 2023, Ms. Linfante was one of eight executive directors chosen by the Richard King Mellon and McCune Foundations to receive a 3-month, $75,000 sabbatical in recognition of her tireless work in the field of non-profit arts administration.

About The Knights

The Knights are a collective of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music. Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, they inspire listeners with vibrant programs that encompass their roots in the classical tradition and passion for artistic discovery. The orchestra has toured and recorded with renowned soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham, and has appeared across the world’s most prestigious stages,?including those?at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, Ravinia, The Kennedy Center, and the Vienna Musikverein.

The Knights evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers, who are also founding members of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, serve as artistic directors of The Knights, with Eric Jacobsen as conductor. Since incorporating in 2007, the orchestra has toured consistently across the United States and Europe.

The Knights seek to share music with a broad general public regardless of background, and the group designs programs to appeal to both loyal followers and new listeners alike. The Knights perform in traditional concert halls as well as in parks, plazas, and bars, and create unusual and adventurous partnerships across disciplines. Counted among recent highlights are fully-staged performances of Bernstein's Candide at both Tanglewood and Ravinia; the release of a recording of the Brahms and Beethoven Violin Concertos with Gil Shaham; and a full 2021 summer season in a reawakened New York City, with performances at Central Parks’ Naumburg Bandshell, Bryant Park, Governors Island, and Green-Wood Cemetery.

The orchestra seeks out and prioritizes collaborative partnerships with artists often underrepresented in classical music. Recent seasons have included performances with Brooklyn-based Pan Evolution Steel Orchestra, with African musicians as part of William Kentridge’s The Head and the Load, and with a diverse group of contemporary composers and performers including Vijay Iyer, Kinan Azmeh, Angélica Negrón, and Jessie Montgomery, among others.

The Knights are proud to be known as “one of Brooklyn’s sterling cultural products…known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory” (The New Yorker). Their roster boasts musicians of remarkably diverse talents, including composers, arrangers, singer-songwriters, and improvisers, who bring a range of cultural influences to the group, from jazz and klezmer to pop and indie rock music. The unique camaraderie within the group retains the intimacy and spontaneity of chamber music in performance. Through the palpable joy and friendship in their music-making, each musician strives to include new and familiar audiences to experience this important art form.