Camerata Pacifica Appoints Three New Board Members

Camerata Pacifica, considered one of the nation’s leading chamber music collectives and noted for its musical versatility and bold programming, has appointed three new members to its Board of Directors, announced Board Chair Kimberley Valentine. They include Betsy Blanchard Chess (Ventura), an arts manager; Cheryl Shields, (El Dorado Hills), a business executive in the environmental and waste services industries; and Sandra Tillisch Svoboda (Santa Barbara), editor-in-chief of Orchid Digest.

“We’re delighted to welcome Betsy Blanchard Chess, Cheryl Shields, and Sandra Tillisch Svoboda to Camerata Pacifica’s Board of Directors,” says Valentine. “They bring extensive professional and volunteer leadership experience to Camerata Pacifica. Their passion and commitment to the arts will help foster the organization’s mission to share exceptional chamber music with the community through live performances in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties as well as videos from past performances that are available free of charge to patients in hospitals around the country through Camerata Pacifica’s noted The Nightingale Channel."

Betsy Blanchard Chess (Ventura), who was born into a Santa Paula pioneer ranching family, grew up with a desire to understand and preserve Ventura County agriculture and the rich history of the region. She has a keen awareness and respect for the contributions of the past as they enrich the future and continues her family’s deep commitment to community involvement and support. Chess has written extensively on Ventura County agricultural and business history and, in 1988, became editor and publisher of The Broadcaster Magazine for the Farm Bureau of Ventura County. In 2004, the magazine was expanded to include Santa Barbara County and renamed Central Coast Farm & Ranch. She retired from the magazine in 2013. Chess has had a concurrent career as an arts manager and volunteer, serving as Executive Director of New West Symphony, interim Executive Director for the Rubicon Theatre, and Director of Development for the Museum of Ventura County. In a volunteer capacity, she is a past president of the Rotary Club of Ventura, past president of the Ventura Music Festival, and currently sits on the board of the Museum. She was also a member of the SeeAg board of directors, which promotes agricultural awareness among young people in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and served as a Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of Ventura. In 2017, Chess joined the board of the Limoneira Company, only the third woman on the board in the company’s 135-year history. In 2006, Chess was honored as A Woman of Vision by the Ventura County Interfaith Ministerial Association, was named 2014 Ventura County Volunteer of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties and was one of the recipients of the Ventura County Star’s 25 over 50 award. She has received multiple Paul Harris Fellowship Rotary awards. In 2021, Chess published a memoir, Daughter of the Land: Growing up in the Citrus Capital of the World, about the history of her family and the citrus industry in Ventura County. In 2023, she was appointed by the Governor to the board of the Ventura County Fair.

Cheryl Shields (El Dorado Hills) was born in San Francisco and raised in Reno, Nevada. She graduated from Utah State University with a degree in forest management and earned a Master of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Her professional career has focused primarily on the environmental and waste services industries in California. Shields has expertise in land use planning, public relations, regulatory/environmental compliance, permitting, legislative liaison, and project management for large scale interstate utility transmission line projects and for large and small waste facility projects, including landfills, materials recovery facilities, composting operations, disposal collection and energy recovery projects. She has resided across the west, including stints in Utah, Idaho, Seattle, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Although she currently resides in El Dorado Hills, CA, Shields still maintains extensive ties to the Los Angeles region, where she continues to spend considerable time. Her first experience with Camerata Pacifica was in March 2022, when she attended a concert in San Marino. She says she was struck by the quality of the program and the musicians as well as the intimate nature of the performance and the "conversation" between the musicians themselves and with the audience. Shields currently serves on the boards of two other non-profit organizations – the Serrano Fire Safe Council in El Dorado Hills, where she performs home hardening and defensible space assessments for her community; and Riva Club USA, a group of vintage wooden Riva boat owners dedicated to the restoration and preservation of classic Italian Riva boats designed and built in Sarnico, Italy.

Sandra Tillisch Svoboda (Santa Barbara), a Minnesota native, moved to California after graduating from Macalester College with a degree in nursing. Since moving to Santa Barbara, she has volunteered for numerous community organization, serving on the boards of Calm and Planned Parenthood and as president of the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute Board. A devoted orchid enthusiast as well, Svoboda is editor-in-chief of the Orchid Digest, an international orchid journal. She has served as president of the boards
of the Orchid Digest, the American Orchid Society, and the World Orchid Conference, and was the manager of the Santa Barbara International Orchid Show for several years. Music is also of major importance to her. Svoboda, fan of Camerata Pacifica since it first performed in churches decades ago, has commissioned two works for the chamber music collective.

For information on Camerata Pacifica, please visit www.cameratapacifica.org.