Celesta M. Billeci, Miller McCune Executive Director of UCSB Arts & Lectures, to Retire After 25 Seasons

As the longest serving director in the organization’s history she expanded its operations tenfold

Celesta M. Billeci, Miller McCune Executive Director of UCSB Arts & Lectures, announced this week that she will retire at the end of the 2024-2025 season. Billeci has led Arts & Lectures through 25 celebrated and successful years. Though Billeci’s next chapter takes her beyond our campus, her legacy of leadership will continue to inspire our community.

Billeci is the third UCSB Arts & Lectures director, following Peg Armstrong and Jan Oetinger, and the longest-serving director in the organization’s history. Billeci arrived at UCSB following more than a decade of leadership at the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts (subsequently known as UCLA Live, and currently as the UCLA Center for the Art of Performance). Over the course of two and a half decades in the top spot at UC Santa Barbara, she brought Arts & Lectures to downtown Santa Barbara venues and to national prominence. Embracing the program’s unusually broad scope, Billeci grew the organization’s budget from less than a million dollars to its current level of over $10 million annually.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO DANCE

Her avid pursuit of the best and most timely programming available has made UC Santa Barbara a coveted stop on world tours for international dance companies such as Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan, Ballet Preljocaj, Lyon Opera Ballet and Batsheva Dance Company. All of the major American dance companies–Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Alonzo King LINES, New York City Ballet Moves, Dorrance Dance, as well as individual stars like Lil Buck and Tiler Peck–now perform in Santa Barbara on a regular basis as a result of Billeci’s sustained curation.

Billeci with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Tiler Peck and MacArthur Award-winning choreographer Michelle Dorrance in 2023

DISTINCTION IN LECTURES

UCSB Arts & Lectures takes pride in the breadth, depth and sophistication of its lecture offerings. Distinguished visitors in recent years include President Joseph Biden, television hosts Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, and three winners of the Nobel Prize: 2014 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai, 2020 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Dr. Jennifer Doudna, and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa.

Billeci with Conan O’Brien in 2016

65TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE CLOSE FRIENDS

This season, longtime friends like Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis and others will return to help celebrate Arts & Lectures’ 65th anniversary. Marsalis had this to say about Billeci:

“Man, I’ve known Celesta since she was a baby, just starting out. We kind of came up in the same time period. I knew her from the very beginning of her career. I always loved her because she has consistently been so intense and for real. She’s like a force of nature. Now we’ve been out here doing this for, I don’t know, 30 years or whatever it is, and when I look at her now I have to smile, because it reminds me of, in those early days, how much of a believer she was in the arts and in bringing people deep experiences. She is so absolutely for real. Her name is always the first one that comes out of my mouth whenever people talk about presenting arts organizations or arts programs on college campuses or arts management. She is the absolute gold standard for this type of work, and even when she was a kid, she had that kind of dedication.”

Wynton Marsalis and Billeci in 2006.

ENHANCING THE PROGRAM

With her commitment to the highest standards of artistic excellence comes an equal emphasis on diversity, accessibility, and connection. She established the ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Barbara! program in 2006 to share the rich cultural heritage of Latin America through free performances and workshops. Today, Viva collaborates with dozens of local partners to present high-quality touring artists in schools, after-school programs, and community centers throughout north and south Santa Barbara County. On the UC Santa Barbara campus, the Arnhold Arts & Lectures Initiative enables thousands of students to connect with today’s most essential artists in intimate settings such as master classes, classroom visits, and workshops. More recently, the Justice For All programming initiative has given students free access to the world’s greatest minds, illuminating a wide spectrum of systemic injustice, confronting uncomfortable questions, solving difficult problems and guiding us all toward a more equitable world.

“A TRANSFORMATIVE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR”

In a statement addressed to the UCSB Campus Community, Executive Vice Chancellor David Marshall wrote “Celesta Billeci has been a transformative A&L Executive Director, collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and community members to enhance the educational and cultural mission of UC Santa Barbara. We thank her for her many contributions and look forward to A&L’s 65th anniversary season.”

Billeci has been instrumental in fulfilling Arts & Lectures’ role in the university’s mission. By attracting top performers and lecturers from afar, she has brought the world’s resources to the campus. By extending the reach of A&L’s programming to venues in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, she has brought the campus to the community. Rising to the challenge presented by the pandemic, she sustained the organization’s financial viability through a prolonged period when quarantine shut down live performances. Arts & Lectures has provided meaningful employment to hundreds of students and staff members throughout her tenure. “I am devoted to my loyal staff,” says Billeci,”without them and the wonderful student workers who do everything from staff the box office to usher the events, none of this would be possible.”

Billeci thanks the many generous donors and patrons who have contributed to the organization over the past 25 years, saying that “the support Arts & Lectures has received from the community is exemplary in every way. Their help and guidance has made all the difference, and the prestige that Arts & Lectures enjoys today is founded on those efforts.”

In recent years, Billeci has steered Arts & Lectures from the first ranks of presenting to the forefront of commissioning works as well. Collaborations with other institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Cal Performances have helped groups like the Danish String Quartet, the Mark Morris Dance Group and Twyla Tharp Dance and artists such as mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, violinist Jennifer Koh and bass-baritone Davóne Tines create and premiere new work.

The University will conduct a national search for Billeci’s successor.

For now, Billeci looks forward to presenting a stellar 65th anniversary season and ensuring the organization’s stability as it continues to entertain, educate, and inspire for another 65 years and more.

ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES

Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.