Executive Director
For the past twenty-eight years, Phil Walz has worked in non-profit leadership positions in the arts, culture, and economic development in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Before joining the Greater Akron Musical Association / Akron Symphony Orchestra in June 2009, Walz managed the New Hampshire Music Festival (1981-87), for which the League of American Orchestras presented him with their 4th Helen M. Thompson Award (1985). Other musical groups with which he has been affiliated include: New Hampshire Symphony (1980-81), Music Director for the Manchester Choral Society (1980-82), Saratoga-Potsdam Summer Chorus for The Philadelphia Orchestra (1980), and the New Hampshire Gentlemen (1978-80): a male acapella ensemble which he founded at the University of New Hampshire.
His extensive arts festival work includes service as Executive Director for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts (1991-2005) where he founded First Night® State College (1994) in celebration of the Borough of State College’s Centennial in 1996. In 2001, State College’s Town & Gown Magazine recognized him as one of five “Citizens of the Year” for his contributions to the community.
Walz served as Director of Development / Campaign Director for Plymouth (N.H.) State University’s (1987-91) first major capital campaign to build The Silver Cultural Arts Center which consisted of a public-private partnership totaling over $9 million. He served in a similar position for Rockland, Maine’s Island Institute where he managed the final phase of their $20 Million “Sustaining A Way Of Life” Campaign for Maine Islands and Working Waterfronts’ apital Campaign.
Throughout his career, Walz has initiated numerous “arts as economic development” collaborations with tourism promotion agencies, chambers of commerce, arts councils, main street programs, and other entities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, and the State of New York. For example, he has maintained an extensive affiliation with the University Cultural Center Association’s Detroit Festival of the Arts, located in mid-town Detroit, since 1992.
