Lucinda Carver Appointed Interim Executive Director of Boston Conservatory at Berklee

As interim executive director, she will assume oversight of Boston Conservatory's Strategic Direction for 2020–2025 and be tasked with guiding forward the strategy's key initiatives. Carver will also provide foundational support to the Conservatory community, serving as an advocate for its students, faculty, and staff. In furthering the Conservatory’s goals, Carver will work directly with Berklee President Erica Muhl, Berklee senior leadership, and the Conservatory's senior leadership team, in addition to collaborating with colleagues across the larger organization, including trustees, supporters, partners and friends.

Carver brings more than 20 years of experience in academic innovation to her role as interim executive director of Boston Conservatory. In addition to her appointment as vice dean, since 1998 she has also served on the faculty at the Thornton School as a professor of keyboard studies, harpsichord, instrumental conducting, and early music. As vice dean, she assembled and oversaw a panel of faculty, staff, administrators, and students to completely reimagine the school’s Bachelor of Music curriculum, and authored the resulting white paper that became known as “The ReDesign.” Carver was also instrumental in enhancing the audition and selection process for the artist diploma program, making the signature professional track available to all departments at the school, standardizing the repertoire requirements, and establishing a final competitive audition round adjudicated by all department chairs. Working directly to address the need for stronger DEIJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice) structures and programs, she facilitated 18 town hall–style listening sessions that resulted in profound changes at the school, jumpstarting the efforts toward diversity and inclusivity across curricula, repertoire, and guest artists programs, and focusing the agenda on social justice issues. In recognition of her outstanding work at USC, Carver received the Ramo Music Faculty Award, the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring.

Active in both the symphonic and operatic arenas, Carver is a distinguished conductor, pianist, and harpsichordist whose performances as soloist and recitalist have been met with glowing praise, and earned her a place among the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Tori Amos, Oscar Peterson, and André Previn as a Bösendorfer Artist. As a Fulbright fellow to Austria, Carver concertized extensively throughout Europe. She has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Symphony Augusta, Capella Salzburgensis, Musica Angelica, and Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and frequently undertook the dual role of soloist and conductor as music director of the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra. She currently serves as artistic director of the Centrum Port Townsend Chamber Music Festival and coartistic director of the Rencontres Franco-Américaines de Musique de Chambre in France.
 
Carver’s symphonic conducting credits include guest appearances with the National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Richmond Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has conducted at major music festivals including Wolf Trap, the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Eclectic Orange Festival, and San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series. With the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, she conducted two critically acclaimed recordings on the RCM label and led the orchestra on two North American tours, highlights of which were featured on CBS Sunday Morning. In the operatic realm, she has conducted productions with New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Virginia Opera. 

Carver earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance (with secondary fields in conducting and harpsichord) at the USC Thornton School of Music, an Artist Diploma at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music.