The field of arts and cultural management lost a glorious voice this week with the passing of Fan Taylor at the age of 94. I am a direct beneficiary of Fan’s extraordinary and field-defining work in managing and advancing the arts. And I had the great pleasure of a continuing conversation with her over the past many years.
Those who don’t know Fan’s work can find her professional history in the article online. But the core of that opus, and the passion behind it, will long endure in the hundreds she mentored, advised, haggled with, and cajoled while getting eager audiences and great artists into a shared performance space.
Back in the 1950s, when only a few considered the management, marketing, and advancement of the arts a professional endeavor, Fan was teaching UW-Madison students on the subject, and gathering a national coalition of her peers to learn from each other. She fostered countless networks of professionals, encouraging all of them to find and mentor others in turn. During one of our last lunches together here in Madison, she was still curious about my students, insistent on their curriculum, and bubbling with stories of her performing arts past.
Fan was also dissatisfied with the performing arts series presented in her retirement community, and plotting ways to improve the caliber, quality, connection, and audience turn-out of these events. This at 94.
”Book to your audience, only better,” was Fan’s programming philosophy. On-stage and off, she continually nudged everyone around her to do the same.
And for the record, although our last names are the same, Fan and I are not related — except in our chosen profession and our interest in making it stronger.
“Book for your audience, only better”
How fitting that is the lead in the WSJ, when just last week I was talking to a group of arts admin students at a local univ. and passed on those very same sentiments that were passed down from Fan to those of us in the Bolz program.
And now two time zones and as many generations away, her words of wisdom continue on. May her legacy continue through all our work.
Christopher Libby/1991
Vancouver, BC
The University concert series has never surpassed its glory days under Fan Taylor’s leadership. I had come to Madison from Oberlin College, and was grateful to have such a first rate subscription series. I remember particularly the vocalists — including Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Shirley Verret, Tom Krause, Hermann Prey; and instrumentalists as well — the several visits of Isaac Stern, and later of his protege Itzshak Perlman; the Oistrakhs; Sviatoslav Richter, Rosalind Tureck, Leon Fleischer, Janos Starker and so many more. I was later, as a faculty member, privileged to serve with Fan on the Board of the University Club. She was a very great lady.