Luminato Announces Peter Herrndorf As Board Chair Designate

Visionary arts leader, out-going president and CEO of the National Arts Centre, and founding Luminato board member Peter Herrndorf is announced as chair designate of the festival following an unanimous acclamation by the board. Herrndorf will succeed festival co-founder Tony Gagliano, Executive Chairman and CEO of St. Joseph Communications, and recent recipient of the Edmund C. Bovey Award for Philanthropy in the Arts. In 2018 Gagliano concludes an impressive 12-year tenure as chair, for which Luminato is extremely grateful.

"I couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Peter as chair designate," said Gagliano. "My focus has been on finding the ideal person for the next phase of growth and development for Luminato as it moves forward and there is no one better suited to this role. I look forward to working closely with Peter and the board as I continue to contribute to the organization's success in every way I can. Over the past decade, Luminato has grown into one of the world's leading international arts festivals - it has been a great honour and pleasure to serve as chair."

"Luminato's co-founders and chairs, David Pecaut and Tony Gagliano, created an extraordinary festival that is a driving force of culture across Canada," said Herrndorf. "To date, I've been fortunate to play a role in Luminato's development as a board member. I am now excited and honoured to succeed Tony's unstinting years at the helm as chair designate. I look forward to our ongoing collaborations and to working closely with the festival's wonderful team, led by CEO Anthony Sargent."

Luminato's board also approved a 10-year business plan for the non-profit organization, charting a path for continued development and growth through the festival's second decade. Together with the Boston Consulting Group, a steering committee from the board of directors and the festival's senior leadership team, the plan was based on an in-depth analysis of Luminato's first 11 years and an analysis of a range of international arts festivals used as peer benchmarks. The business plan builds on the foundations of the festival's artistic ambitions and financial goals to project significant growth across box office and development revenue, a focused marketing and communications strategy, commitment to artistic development in Canada and more.

Introducing the new plan, CEO Anthony Sargent said "after ten years of extraordinary achievement for a completely new international festival, this new plan reflects the exciting ways Luminato's original city-building vision is being renewed for our second decade, in an artistically and culturally diverse Toronto very different from the 2007 Toronto into which Luminato was born."

The 2017 festival (the first programmed by artistic director Josephine Ridge) was met with widespread critical and audience acclaim. Running June 14 to 25, Luminato's 11th edition featured 89 performances with 33 free events and included three world premieres, five North American premieres, and five Canadian premieres by 571 artists (representing 15 countries with 81 per cent Canadian). Though challenged by restrictively tight timelines (Ridge began work in mid-2016 with only eight months to plan and deliver the full festival), Luminato successfully launched its renewed artistic mandate and programmed a series of important projects while garnering a small financial surplus.

Luminato is Toronto's international multi-arts, multi-platform festival dedicated to performance, visual art, music, theatre, dance, and programming that cuts across traditional art form boundaries. The 2017 festival ran June 14 to 25, launching Luminato's second decade. In its first decade, Luminato became one of the preeminent international arts festivals in North America, with more than 3,000 performances including 100 new commissions, featuring 11,000 artists from over 40 countries.

Led by CEO Anthony Sargent CBE and Artistic Director Josephine Ridge, Luminato is a charitable, not-for-profit, globally connected cultural organization proudly based in Toronto.
www.luminato.com

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