Tony Mazzocchi, President and CEO of Kaufman Music Center

What if the purpose of music education was about more than developing musicians? What if it was about developing more empathetic, creative, and collaborative human beings? Tony Mazzocchi has spent his career challenging assumptions about who gets to make music and why it matters. After beginning his career as a professional trombonist, an unexpected opportunity to teach middle school band in Brooklyn transformed his understanding of what young people are capable of when given the right resources, opportunities, and expectations. Today, as President and CEO of Kaufman Music Center in New York City, he is working to make music an essential part of education and community life, expanding access to meaningful creative experiences for people of all ages. In this episode, Tony joins Monica Holt to explore why artistic excellence and accessibility go hand in hand, how music develops human capacities that are increasingly valuable in the age of AI, and what it would take to make arts education a core part of every child's learning experience. He also challenges arts organizations to rethink what it means to be relevant, arguing that their future depends on demonstrating their value to the communities they serve, including people who may never walk through their doors. ----- LINKS: Kaufman Music Center: https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/ Kinhaven: https://kinhaven.org/ 

AI is changing how audiences discover arts and cultural experiences, and the implications extend far beyond marketing and IT teams. For arts leaders, understanding how audiences find, evaluate, and choose cultural experiences is essential to staying relevant. In this episode recorded live at Capacity Boot Camp 2026, Dan Titmuss, Senior Consultant, AI & Organic Search at Capacity, demystifies how AI-powered search works and what it means for the future of audience engagement.  This episode builds on our past conversations with Baratunde Thurston, Jen Taylor, and others, turning our attention to one of the most immediate ways AI is changing how audiences connect with our organizations.

Arts and cultural organizations are constantly being asked to demonstrate their impact. Data can help us make that case, but how do we bring the stories behind the numbers to life? For Giorgia Lupi, award-winning information designer and partner at Pentagram, data is far more than a collection of facts and figures. Approaching numbers with an artist’s mindset can help us communicate not just what we do, but why it matters.  As Giorgia gets ready to take the stage at Capacity Boot Camp 2026, we’re bringing you a special encore of her Arts Unscripted episode where we dig into her philosophy of “data humanism” and how a more nuanced approach to numbers can change the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. This refreshed conversation also features a few previously unreleased moments from the original interview. Want to hear more from Giorgia? Catch her keynote with a virtual ticket to Boot Camp. ---- LINKS: Capacity Boot Camp 2026: https://www.capacityinteractivebootcamp.com/registration-2026  Giorgia Lupi: https://giorgialupi.com/  Pentagram: https://www.pentagram.com/ 

For Cory Pattak, lighting design has always carried a sense of magic. Over a 20-year career, Cory has designed productions across Broadway, regional theatre, international stages, cruise lines, and more. He is now bringing that same eye for spectacle to a new Pixar-themed production for Hong Kong Disneyland, set to premiere in 2027. In this episode, Cory explains what a lighting designer actually does, and reflects on the mentorship and creative turning points that shaped his path. He also explores the deeply collaborative nature of theatrical design; the balance between individual artistry and serving a director’s vision; and why wonder and joy still sit at the heart of his work. --- LINKS Cory Pattak's Work: https://www.corypattak.com/

The arts help people feel, connect, and find the courage to act. How can we better harness that power—and communicate it beyond our own circles—to ensure the longevity of our field? For Lisa Richards Toney, her connection to art is deeply personal. From finding her confidence through youth arts programs in Washington, D.C. to studying at Spelman College and working in arts education and management, she has experienced the many ways the arts give people a sense of purpose and possibility. Today, as President and CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), she brings that perspective to supporting the people who make live performance happen. In this episode, Lisa reflects on how we can build new pathways to sustain our field, better communicate the civic value of the arts, and build mentorship across generations. ----- LINKS APAP: https://apap365.org/  APAP|NYC Conference: https://apap365.org/conference/  APAP's Advocacy Resources: https://apap365.org/advocacy/   

How do you build a museum around a subject that’s constantly evolving?  As CEO of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP), Michele Y. Smith is helping preserve what refuses to stand still. With exhibitions spanning music, film, fashion, gaming, and fandom, MOPOP examines pop culture not simply as entertainment, but as a reflection of the ideas, identities, and social changes shaping our lives in real time.  In this episode, Michele explores what it means to preserve cultural history while remaining responsive to the present, and why our personal connections to pop culture can become a powerful source of shared experience. ---- LINKS: Museum of Pop Culture: https://www.mopop.org/ Styled by the Streets: Black Women in Hip-Hop Fashion: https://www.mopop.org/exhibitions/styled-by-the-streets

What changes when artists aren’t simply invited to perform, but are given a seat at the table where ideas, policies, and solutions take shape? Joseph Fowler has spent his career moving between artistic disciplines, institutions, and cultural ecosystems around the world. After training at The Royal Ballet School and performing professionally as a dancer, his curiosity took him behind the scenes as a director, producer, programmer, and cultural leader—from London and Paris to Dubai. Today, as Head of Arts and Culture at the World Economic Forum, he brings artists and creative thinking into conversations about some of the world’s most complex challenges. In this episode, Joseph reflects on the evolution that took him from performer to cultural leader, makes the case for creative imagination as an essential tool for solving problems, and explores why technology represents an opportunity as well as a challenge for artists. He also takes us inside the World Economic Forum’s arts and culture programming, including the 2026 opening concert in Davos and The Cultural Table—an initiative designed to put artists at the center of conversations with leaders across business and civil society. ----- LINKS: World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/  World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 Opening Concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCi_3S3s_60 World Economic Forum Cultural Table: https://www.weforum.org/stories/arts-and-culture/the-cultural-table-how-arts-and-culture-can-drive-global-change-and-collaboration/ 

The future isn’t something that simply happens to us. It’s something we help create through the stories we tell, the technologies we use, and the choices we make about how to live together. Baratunde Thurston has spent his career exploring what that responsibility looks like across comedy, media, civic life, and nature. Again and again, his work returns to a deeply human question: how do we embrace change without surrendering our agency? His latest award-winning project Life with Machines turns this question on technology, exploring how new tech shapes our lives—and how we might shape it in return. In this episode, Baratunde reflects on what it means to treat ‘citizen’ as a verb, why conversations about AI demand more nuance, and how we can all take a more active role in shaping our collective future. --- LINKS Life With Machines: https://www.lifewithmachines.media/ How to Citizen: https://www.howtocitizen.com/ American Indigenous Democracy: A Call for Interdependence: https://americanindigenousdemocracy.com/

Rebranding a beloved institution requires not only defining what comes next, but building enough trust and shared ownership that both longtime supporters and new audiences see themselves in the future. Courtney Burke Summers recently helped lead the sweeping rebrand of Celebrity Series of Boston into Vivo Performing Arts, launching a new identity designed to better reflect the organization’s role in its community. In this episode, Courtney shares what it took to bring people along through that transformation and why meaningful change can only happen at the “speed of trust.” She also reflects on the opportunities and challenges of being a nomadic presenter; the value of collaboration across the arts ecosystem; and what most arts organizations are forgetting about the next generation of audiences.  ----- LINKS Vivo Performing Arts: https://www.vivoperformingarts.org/  The REACH at the Kennedy Center: https://www.kennedy-center.org/reach/  Libby: https://libbyapp.com/ 

What if a museum’s job isn’t simply to preserve history, but to help us imagine a different future? Lisa Yun Lee has spent her career exploring what cultural institutions can make possible when they understand themselves as civic spaces. As Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, she leads an institution created by public housing residents to preserve their own histories, challenge dominant narratives about public housing, and bring arts, culture, and public policy together in the fight for housing as a human right. In this episode, Lisa traces the winding path that took her from studying religion and German intellectual history to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the University of Illinois Chicago, and ultimately the National Public Housing Museum. She shares how the museum puts solidarity with public housing residents into practice, why museums should engage both historical fact and lived experience, and what it means to create a cultural institution rooted in radical hospitality and collective joy. Lisa also challenges arts leaders to think expansively about whom our institutions serve and what success looks like—from compensating artists and cultural workers fairly to creating spaces where people can define beauty for themselves. --- LINKS: National Public Housing Museum: https://nphm.org/ NPHM 36 Questions for Civic Love: https://nphm.org/program/36-questions-for-civic-love/ W.A.G.E.: https://wageforwork.com/