Board of Directors
JILL FELBER
Jill Felber, flutist, has been hailed for her "beautifully finished performances" by The Detroit News and has been praised by Musical America for her "handsome performance." "Played with flair" (The Los Angeles Times), "the incredible flutist…the dazzling flutist…the radiant flutist Jill Felber" (The Independent, Santa Barbara), is known to excite audiences everywhere. Jill Felber has performed solo recitals, chamber music, and concertos on four continents and has held residencies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, France, Switzerland, Brazil, Great Britain and the United States. A tireless promoter of new music, Ms. Felber has inspired many composers to write solo, concerto and chamber works for her and is currently engaged in several commissioning projects. She has premiered over five hundred works for the flute and has released world premiere recordings for Centaur Records, CRI, Neuma Records and Zawa!music. Active in the National Flute Association, Ms. Felber has served as a member of its Board of Directors and served as the 1993 Program Chair for the Boston flute convention. Holding degrees from University of Michigan and Bowling Green State University, Ms. Felber has taught on the faculties of Ohio University, Capital University, and Wright State University. She is currently Professor of Flute at the University of California, Santa Barbara and tours with the innovative flute duo ZAWA! and as recitalist with pianist Dianne Frazer. Ms. Felber presents her popular EXTREME MAKEOVER: FLUTE EDITION and WHOLE FLUTES® seminars throughout the country. Her teachers include Keith Bryan, Judith Bentley and James Galway.
ELIZABETH HUSTON
Elizabeth Huston has been fascinated by contemporary art since she can remember. She grew up on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, a surprisingly culturally active area. The daughter of two professional musicians, she watched in awe as her parents took her to incredible events with throat singers, experimental art installations, and 1990s cutting-edge electronic instrument technology. Eizabeth’s parents were the founders of the first-ever youth symphony in their town, and a teenage Elizabeth was often tasked with administrative duties including mailing marketing flyers, making copies, organizing refreshments, and creating room schedules, sparking an interest in production work. Elizabeth arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 2010. Here she met a dedicated art patron merely by chance. He invited Elizabeth to attend the many Philadelphia Fringe Festival performances that he was interested in. She saw performances by Pig Iron Theater and Lucinda Childs Dance, among many others, which showed how projection, costuming, lighting, and staging can change how you interact with performance. Elizabeth immediately began to think about how what she had seen could be applied to music performance, with its traditionally stuffy and plain staging. In 2012 she created A Change of Harp and launched her first concert series which explored what composers saw inside their heads as they wrote. Elizabeth interviewed six local composers about six pieces for solo harp and created visual accompaniments for each piece based on what they had said. This resulted in a performance of dance, projection, theater, and harp which took place during the Fringe Festival: the festival which had so inspired her. The success of this performance made Elizabeth understand that she had touched on a need in the community, and she began exploring other performance styles, putting together multi-media solo harp showcases all over the city. She has since started the Arcana New Music Ensemble in collaboration with Bowerbird, produced numerous shows that explore new stagings of contemporary music, started a brand new harp program for Play on Philly, started a summer harp program for inner city youth, and teaches through her private studio. Elizabeth currently resides in Los Angeles.
ARTHUR SWALLEY
Arthur G. Swalley, CIMA®, is a founding partner and Director of Investments at Arlington Financial Advisors. He is responsible for developing the asset allocation, investment strategy, and portfolio construction for the clients of Arlington Financial Advisors. He was born in Rhodes, Greece and raised in Santa Barbara. After his education at Yale University, Arthur returned to Santa Barbara to begin his career in the financial industry at Merrill Lynch in 1990. During his time at Merrill Lynch, he earned the titles of Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager. Along with his Yale degree, Arthur holds the the Certified Investment Manager Analyst CIMA® designation, earned through examination at the Wharton School. Arthur holds the series 7 and 63 registrations as well as his life insurance license. He is a member and past Treasurer of the Board of the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, and has served as President of the Board of the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra Association. Arthur resides in Santa Barbara with his wife Winnie and their two sons.
DAN THOMAS
Dan Thomas has served in nonprofit leadership roles for more than 20 years. He is currently chief development officer at the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, where he has overall responsibility for all fund development. Prior to his position at the Foodbank, he was assistant vice president for college advancement at Westmont College. Before moving to Santa Barbara in January 2015, Dan was executive director of Free Arts Minnesota, an organization that brought mentors and the healing power of the arts to young people in homeless shelters, transitional housing facilities and residential treatment centers. Prior to Free Arts Minnesota, Dan was chief operating officer at the PBS station in the Twin Cities. Dan has an MFA in Writing from Seattle Pacific University, an MA in Film from the University of Wisconsin, and a BA in literature from the University of Minnesota. Dan's poetry book, Deep Pockets, will be published by Saint Julian Press of Houston in May 2018. In addition to writing poetry, he plays the guitar and writes music. For six years he served as vice-chair of the American Composers Forum. Dan is the father of three grown children. He and his wife, Ellie, moved to Santa Barbara in 2015.