Music Center’s President Resigns to Take Job in Atlanta

Shelton Stanfill, president of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, has resigned to become president of the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, where he also will be involved in cultural programs associated with the 1996 Olympic Games, it was announced Friday.

Stanfill, 54, will step down in late March. In his new post, he will oversee the Woodruff center’s Alliance Theatre Company, the Atlanta College of Art, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the High Museum of Art.

Stanfill, who stepped down as president and chief executive office of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts near Washington, D.C., to join the Music Center in January 1994, was released from his three-year contract by the Music Center’s board of governors. The Music Center is the fund-raising arm of the downtown theater complex, which includes the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera and the Master Chorale.

Nicholas T. Goldsborough, executive vice president of the Music Center, will assume the title of chief operating officer and take over Stanfill’s duties until the board of governors names a new president, center Chairman Robert B. Egelston announced. Goldsborough joined the Music Center last March from a position as deputy director of development at UCLA.

Stanfill said Friday that the Atlanta institution had sought him for the post within the last month. “It’s been very quick--in fact, the final offer was just sent to me early this morning,” he said.

His decision to leave, he said, has nothing to do with dissatisfaction here. The fund-raising organization has been challenged by Southern California’s dismal economy, as well as by having to overcome a tarnished image that grew out of two years of controversy over accounting and spending practices, which ultimately led to the resignation of center President Esther Wachtell.

“I have gotten enormous joy out of this job. Even the challenges have been enjoyable because the quality of the arts here is still so wonderful it makes it difficult to think about leaving,” he said. “But what makes this a very attractive offer is that it gives me a chance to get back into the visual arts, plus the chance to to go to Atlanta at a time when the Olympics is happening is too much to resist.”

During Stanfill’s tenure, there also have been construction delays and spiraling cost estimates for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the planned new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which most recently has been estimated to cost $246.9 million and faces a $149.5-million fund-raising gap. While a separate Disney Hall committee is responsible for the bulk of that fund-raising, construction delays have disappointed Music Center and philharmonic officials.

But Stanfill said such problems did not influence his decision to take the new job. “I had hoped to see it happen when I arrived here--I thought it was going to be happening within four or five years, so the fact that it will take longer to build is a disappointment,” he said of the Disney Hall. “But [delay] is always the case with buildings, so part of me was prepared for that.”

Both Stanfill and Egelston, as well as others connected with the Music Center, vehemently deny rumors that Stanfill or the Music Center was unhappy with their relationship, or that Stanfill was actively seeking other posts. At the same time, some acknowledged that Stanfill is considered stronger as an advocate for the arts than as a nuts-and-bolts fund-raiser.

Under him the Music Center met its fund-raising goal for the first time since 1992, though it was set lower than in the past.

Some say the new position may have attracted Stanfill because he missed the active role as an arts presenter he enjoyed at Wolf Trap.

“He is not really a fund-raiser,” Goldsborough said. “He is a performing arts professional administrator, and, while he is very good at fund-raising when he is given the script . . . that’s not what he does.”

Goldsborough and Gordon Davidson, Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum director, praised Stanfill for helping restore the Music Center’s reputation, as well as strengthening its artistic core.

“[His leaving] has taken me by surprise,” Davidson said. “ I liked Shelton very much; we had easy rapport. What I particularly liked about him was he loved the theater. . . . I think the fund-raising is daunting here, but I don’t get a sense that any of that has disturbed him, or is a factor.”

Ernest Fleischmann, managing director of the Philharmonic, said: “I think it’s nothing more or less than he has had another offer. While we are sorry to see him go, I, and certainly everyone else here, has great confidence in Nick Goldsborough. . . . It’s good to know that, although a key person is leaving, we’re the strongest we’ve ever been.”

Harry Hufford, chief executive of the committee overseeing the Disney Hall project, said he does not expect that having an interim president will harm fund-raising efforts. He said Stanfill remains friendly to the Music Center and has offered to help forge national fund-raising ties in Atlanta.

“We clearly would like Los Angeles benefactors to provide the primary support, but on the other hand, we know the Disney name is very, very powerful, both nationally and internationally,” Hufford said. “We’d love to have friends in Los Angeles, New York and other cities.”

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