BARBICAN’S FORMER HEAD OF ART AND MUSIC HIRED BY KENNEDY CENTER

The Kennedy Center has appointed a new senior vice president of artistic planning: Robert van Leer, according to the Washington Post’s Peggy McGlone. The head of music and arts projects at the Barbican Center in London for fifteen years, van Leer later worked as managing director of Nederlands Dans Theater. Most recently, he served as managing director of the arts consultant firm Wonderbird UK in London.

In his new role, writes McGlone, he’ll work to “supervise its creative management team of theater, dance, and music programmers and to establish a unified artistic vision for the nation’s busiest arts center.”

“This is a really important role. We need to have sympathetic language, shared ideals, I needed to hear him speak about what he saw and heard,” said Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter. “I will meet with Robert all the time, but I will still work closely with the others.”