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Evan Leslie

  • Director of Community Arts, Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts 
  • Managing Director, Texas Music Festival
Evan Leslie is an arts educator and cellist. He is the Managing Director of the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival and the Director of the Community Arts at the University of Houston, Katherine C. McGovern College of the Arts.

 

From 2013 – 2020, Evan was the Artistic Producer at Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, one of the world’s largest repositories of performing arts manuscripts and archives. During his time at the “Lincoln Center Library,” Evan conceived and produced hundreds of music, theater, and dance educational programs and performances, working collaboratively with the Metropolitan Opera, the Juilliard School, The Public Theater, New York City Ballet, WNYC radio, The International Contemporary Ensemble, Carnegie Hall, The New York Philharmonic, Sesame Workshop and many other cultural organizations. In addition to producing more traditional performances, Evan specializes in unconventional, social-learning experiences, such as “Trivia Concerts,” "Sing-Along Show and Tells," social dance experiences, and educational faux-debates, like the Mostly Mozart Festival’s Shakespeare vs. Mozart or WNYC’s The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones.

 

Before moving to New York, Evan managed community engagement projects and the Longhorn Music record label at the University of Texas, Butler School of Music. From 2008 – 2011, Evan was the Director of Education at Da Camera of Houston, where he established the Da Camera Young Artist Program, a career-training program for emerging professional chamber music and jazz performers.  Evan was also Managing Producer of Public Programs for Museum of Fine Arts Houston from 2020 - 2022. 

 

As a cellist, Evan has performed with the New York Classical Players, New York Chamber Music Festival, The Grand Teton Music Festival, Da Camera of Houston, and in the cello sections of the Austin and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras. An adventurous musician, Evan has recently performed with Catastrophic Theater, Hearts of Animals, and was a guest performer with the "Bad Boys of Cello" (Houston Symphony celli's alter ego).  He was an adjunct professor of cello at The University of St. Thomas from 2009 - 2013.  He studied cello at the Moores School of Music, and he received his master’s degree in cello from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Brinton Averil Smith.