Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Tuesday named Gretchen Hollrah as the brand new chief of Denver Arts & Venues, filling a job that oversees multimillion-dollar tasks at a number of the state’s largest music, arts and leisure venues.
Hollrah’s appointment comes after the September ouster of Ginger White-Brunetti, the previous Arts & Venues director appointed by former Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. As is customary with new administrations, White-Brunetti in July was requested to reapply for her job as Johnston assembled his personal crew.
In contrast to White-Brunetti, Hollrah will lead Denver Arts & Venues whereas additionally serving as deputy chief working officer for Johnston’s administration, persevering with the position that she began in August. The A&V director job will stay a separate, paid place, however Hollrah will solely be paid for her COO job, in keeping with Johnston’s workplace.
Hancock had appointed White-Brunetti as deputy director of Arts & Venues in 2012, following a stint with the Denver Workplace of Cultural Affairs. In her 18 years with the town, White-Brunetti helped design highway maps for Denver’s cultural revival, together with the Create Denver program, and oversaw years of report income and venue visits as tourism, arts attendance and metro-area cultural investments skyrocketed, pre-pandemic.
Hollrah’s appointment was in the present day introduced together with Dwight Jones, the brand new director of the Workplace of Youngsters’s Affairs, and Jeff Dolan, Johnston’s new chief technique officer and counsel.
“Dwight, Gretchen, and Jeff know Denver inside and outside, and their management will make Denver the perfect metropolis for artists, children and households, and neighborhood members,” Johnston mentioned in a press assertion. “They’ve dedicated their lives to serving Denver, and I stay up for persevering with to work shoulder-to-shoulder to ship on our promise of a vibrant Denver.”
Hollrah most lately labored as COO of Denver Heart for the Performing Arts, one of many nation’s largest nonprofit theater organizations, and had been with the town for the earlier twenty years, together with stints as interim director of the Division of Excise and Licenses, and the town’s chief tasks officer, overseeing the Nationwide Western Heart and others.
Denver Arts & Venues is the nonprofit metropolis company that owns and operates Purple Rocks Amphitheatre, the Denver Performing Arts Complicated, Colorado Conference Heart, Denver Coliseum, Loretto Heights and McNichols Civic Heart Constructing. It packages free and low-cost artwork occasions, maintains the town’s public artwork assortment, runs the 5 Factors Jazz Competition, and operates on taxpayer {dollars}.
Final 12 months the company spent about $9.4 million in venue enhancements, together with at Purple Rocks, and distributed $3 million in grants and funding to 350 arts organizations, according to its website.
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