Henry Fogel

During the period of his leadership the League's finances have been stabilized, a major strategic plan has been undertaken, and the Board has been strengthened. Mr. Fogel was President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association for eighteen years beginning in 1985. During his time there, the Association's endowment increased from $19 million to over $160 million, and attendance to classical subscription concerts increased by over 20%. The Association operated with surpluses for fifteen of his eighteen years. Also during his tenure, the CSO undertook a massive program of community engagement and strengthened its educational programs considerably. In 1997, Mr. Fogel completed overseeing the award winning Symphony Center project - the $120 million dollar renovation and expansion of Orchestra Hall.

Mr. Fogel was Chairman of the Board of the League of American Orchestras from 2001-2003, and served a previous ten year term as a League Trustee in the 1980s and 90s. He is a member of the Illinois Arts Alliance, which he served as both President and Chairman in the past, and is a member Board of Overseers of the Curtis Institute, the Executive Committee of the Avery Fisher Artist Program, the Board of the College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and the Honorary Board of the Institute for the Study of Black Music at Columbia College. He has served as a judge at conducting competitions in New York, Helsinki, Sofia, and Tokyo.

Mr. Fogel is a professor at Roosevelt University's College of Performing Arts in Chicago, where he teaches a course in orchestral studies. He has been a record reviewer for Fanfare magazine since 1981, and has contributed several entries to the book Contemporary Composers, and to The Harvard Dictionary of Music. He also writes a monthly column for Auditorium, the leading music magazine in South Korea. He has produced many series of radio programs for Chicago Fine Arts Station WFMT that have been syndicated nationally, including, currently, Collectors' Corner, which is derived from his extensive collection of over 20,000 classical recordings. He is also a regular panelist on the Quiz of the Metropolitan Opera international broadcasts. He has served as a pro bono consultant for governance, management, and labor issues to many orchestras throughout the country, including those in Houston, Louisville, Detroit, Syracuse, Buffalo, San Antonio, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chattanooga, and Omaha, as well as many Illinois orchestras. He also serves as an observer for the Opera Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, and has served on panels for the NEA and for state arts councils of New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois.

Mr. Fogel has served as a narrator with a number of orchestras. He has performed Copland's Lincoln Portrait, Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Russel Peck's The Thrill of the Orchestra, and adaptations of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and Grieg's Peer Gynt.

He has received honorary doctorate degrees from Northwestern University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Columbia College in Chicago, and Roosevelt University in Chicago. In 2004, he received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for an article entitled Unanswered Questions published in SYMPHONY Magazine. In 1999, Mr. Fogel received a Cultural Leadership Citation from Yale University's School of Music for service to the cultural life of the nation. In 1997, he received the Top Chicagoan Award from Chicago Magazine. In 1990, he was named by Business Week magazine as one of the five best managers of cultural organizations in the United States. In 2007 he was cited for "outstanding contributions to and accomplishments in the field of Music Education" by the Eastern Division of the National Association for Music Education.

Mr. Fogel served as Executive Director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. from 1981 to 1985, and Orchestra Manager of the New York Philharmonic from 1978 to1981. From 1963 to 1978, he was Vice President and Program Director of radio station WONO in Syracuse, New York. He is also a passionate Chinese cook, having studied for three years under Virginia Lee, author of the New York Times Chinese Cookbook.

A native of New York City, Henry Fogel received his education at Syracuse University. He and his wife, Frances, have a son, Karl, and a daughter, Holly, and three grandchildren.