FENWAY ALLIANCE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Community Engagement
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- Executive Director Kelly Brilliant Interviewed Writer and Author Candelaria Silva - Collins for This Article
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- Executive Director Kelly Brilliant Interviewed Catherine Morris for This Article
- Founder and Executive Director of Boston Art
Catherine T. Morris is the Founder and Executive Director of Boston Art & Music Soul (BAMS) Fest and the Director of Public Programs for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a Fenway Alliance Member Institution. As the Founder and Executive Director of Boston Art & Music Soul (BAMS) Fest, Catherine has created an organization that strives to breakdown racial and social barriers to arts, music and culture for marginalized communities and artists of color across Greater Boston. As a result, BAMS Fest has presented over 400 local and independent musicians and artists, curated in 2020 public spaces and has attracted over 10,000 attendees. Catherine has been a presenter, panelist, and moderator with SPARK Boston, Podcast Garage, Berklee College of Music, Emerson College, Northeastern University, Simmons University, MIT, and Fenway High School. She is a 2018 National Art Strategies Creative Community Fellow (The Barr Foundation), and has served on grant review panels for the Cambridge Arts Council, The Lewis Prize for Music, and the Boston Neighborhood Fellowship (The Boston Foundation)
Catherine was inspired to create BAMS Fest by her experiences living in Philadelphia, where she held seven internships that shaped her unique perspective on and heightened interest in cultural festivals, particularly their ability to bring BIPOC (Black and Indigenous people of color) communities together, boost economies, and equitably expand economic mobility for artists and small businesses. When she returned to Boston, her hometown, in 2014, she entered dialogue with community members- particularly elder leaders- who told her that Boston lacked BIPOC-focused creative spaces and a broad sense of community belonging. "I wondered if Boston was willing to do something for everyone."
During that same time, Catherine was attending graduate school at Simmons College (now Simmons University, a long-term Fenway Alliance member), where she received her master's degree in General Management. While at Simmons, Catherine participated in a competitive shark tank-like session where students presented original business pitches to an all-female panel of business leaders from various fields and communities in Boston. Catherine's pitch describing a large-scale festival of BIPOC performers won the competition.
The first planning meeting for BAMS Fest was held in 2015 amongst a group of community leaders working in diverse industries with a wide range of skill sets- finance, law, business, nonprofits, and community organizing. "I leaned in hard with the elders in my community, " Catherine explained.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial and Administrative Officer
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- Executive Director, the Boston Arts Academy Foundation
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- Director, Corporate Partnerships & Strategic Initiatives
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- Director of Programs, Exhibitions, & Community Partnerships
Genevieve Day comes to The Fenway Alliance from the world of small business and entrepreneurship. She was co-owner and managing partner of a yarn and fabric shop in Jamaica Plain where she built a thriving community crafting scene in the community. She sold the business in 2018 and it continues as a beloved community crafting resource for the area. In 2016, she founded the natural fibers company New England Farm to Fiber and is the founder and executive director of the Boston Farm & Fiber Festival, a New England local farm yarn and craft festival at the Boston Public Market. Genevieve has been involved in community development work and outreach for the Curley K8, a Boston Public School educating 900+ students from all socio-economic backgrounds in the heart of Jamaica Plain. She is the founding member of the Curley Arts Committee, was co-chair of the School Parent Council for two years, and worked on community outreach for the $350k capital campaign to build a new turf playing field at the school. Most recently, Genevieve worked for Fusco & Four, producers of Boston Design Week, where she served as the Non-Profit Organizations Coordinator. Genevieve received a Bachelor of Arts from University of Washington. Genevieve is delighted to bring her passion for community arts and development to her work with the Fenway Alliance.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, City & Community Engagement
For over 16 years, Kelly Brilliant has led The Fenway Alliance in improving the physical, social, economic, and cultural environment of Boston's Fenway community. In 2012, Kelly spearheaded a year-long community effort to designate the Fenway by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as the first of 30 Cultural Districts in Massachusetts. Under Kelly's leadership, the Alliance was selected to manage the Fenway Cultural District. Kelly founded the major Boston public events Opening Our Doors, TEDxFenway, and Public By Design - a public art series that features Massachusetts-based artists. Prior to leading The Fenway Alliance, Kelly directed Healthy Malden 2000, a nonprofit organization established to serve the health of the city and the state through a variety of public health initiatives. Kelly was Managing Director and co-author of the FLASHPOINT curricula initiated by the Eastern District Attorney's Office of Massachusetts and Director of Curriculum for Harvard University's Program for Young Negotiators. Kelly received a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.A. from Boston University. Her career is marked by the belief that everyone should have access to the art and culture at the heart of Boston's diverse communities.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of University Real Estate Development and Facilities Management
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- Director of Media Relations
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- Associate Director of Community & Government Relations
Contemporary percussionist, musical educator, and activist Marcus Santos is a native of Bahia, Brazil.
Marcus Santos has performed with several world renowned artists such as: the Gipsy Kings (France), 10-time Grammy Award-winner Paquito D'Rivera (Cuba), Daniela Mercury (Brazil), the Brand New Heavies (England), and more. In 2001, Santos was featured on Mambolada's Larica Maria , which sold more than 100,000 copies in Brazil alone. Santos also toured Italy with Grammy-nominee Osvaldo Golijov for his show La Pasion. In July 2007, Santos taught and led a parading group of 300 drummers in Cleveland, Ohio, alongside Paul Simon's percussionist, Jamey Haddad.
Over the course of his career, Marcus has performed at various international venues such as Hard Rock Café (Orlando, U.S.), Kouen Mae Dori Classics (Tokyo, Japan), Rock in Rio (Brazil), Buddha (Mexico), Lincoln Center (New York, U.S.), Blend (Honduras), Parco della Musica (Rome, Italy), Holland Festival (Amsterdam, Holland), and the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, U.S.). He has also been featured in multiple film and television productions on networks such as NBC and MTV. In 2008, Santos performed alongside Cyro Baptista in the Oscar-nominated film Rachel Getting Married under the direction of Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme. View Marcus's performance in the film here!
Marcus also spends ample time in an educational role. He has authored texts on Afro-Brazilian musical techniques, such as The Modern Approach to Pandeiro. He has also taught classes and led workshops on Afro-Brazilian Percussion and using music for social change in festivals, universities, and conventions around the world such as: Fiesta Del Tambor (Cuba), Carnegie Hall (NYC), the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), Drum Talk 2007 (Pittsburgh), Harvard University, MIT, Fenway Alliance member Berklee College of Music, Brown University, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Nagoya University (Japan), Cultural Institute Brazil, various TEDx events, Fenway Alliance member New England Conservatory, Middlesex Community College, and Somerville High School.
Job Titles:
- Director of Strategic Initiatives
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- Vice President of College Relations
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- Senior Executive Director
Ray Krantz, former publisher of the now out of circulation Glue Magazine, published a romantic piece of mine. The illustrator assumed I was writing about a white couple, so the illustration was of a white couple. I didn't mind this, but I did realize if I wanted an African American couple illustrated as I had envisioned it, I would need to be more descriptive! In my head the characters were Black, but I never described them as such. White was and is still seen as "the standard."
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Investment Officer
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- Vice President for Strategic Engagement and Chief of Staff
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- Interim Chief Development Officer
Sarah Rathje graduated from Northeastern University with a dual degree in Communications and Political Science. With a strong background in the performing arts and community organizing, Sarah is passionate about exploring the intersection of the two through her work at the Fenway Alliance. She is best known for her participation in Northeastern's Take Back the Night 2017 and her award-winning Health Communications research "Evaluating a State-Wide Opioid Campaign using the Health Belief Model and the Transtheoretical Model." Before joining the Fenway Alliance, Sarah worked on a variety of projects at AthenaHealth in Watertown and at Northeastern University's Communications Department. In addition to her work at the Alliance, Sarah serves as community liaison to two grassroots tenants' rights organizations and as director of fundraising for a committee working to provide harm reduction solutions to those residing on Massachusetts Avenue. Sarah volunteers at Boston Medical Center and CHA Everett Hospital, providing opportunities for recovering addicts to make art and coordinating post-release recovery plans. In her tenure at the Alliance, Sarah has proven herself to be an invaluable member of our staff, learning during her tenure at the Alliance how to be a grant writer, graphic designer, copywriter, journalist, event-organizer, archivist, liaison, and whatever else we need her to be.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Operations
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- Director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy
Job Titles:
- Director of Public Affairs & Strategic Partnerships
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- Special Advisor to the President