Torrie Allen

Vice Chair
Affiliation: 

President & CEO
Arts Midwest
Minneapolis, MN

Torrie Allen has more than 30 years of wide-ranging experience in national, regional, and local arts leadership including executive and artistic management, fundraising, marketing, policy, adjudication, grantmaking, and international performance. He has appeared as keynote speaker for international, national and regional conferences, and a guest lecturer at University of Pennsylvania, Yale, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and other schools.

In 2019, he succeeded David Fraher as the new president and CEO of Arts Midwest. From 2016 to 2019, he presided over all philanthropic activity at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He was chief officer of development and marketing at Alaska Public Media from 2012 to 2016 and executive and artistic director of Anchorage Opera from 2006 to 2012. Prior to joining Anchorage Opera, he was the director of the National Patrons Council at Americans for the Arts.

Allen has served as a grants panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wallace Foundation. He currently serves on the board of National Arts Strategies, VocalEssence, NIVA Foundation, and AIR Institute. He has provided commissioned and volunteer service for the National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, World Affairs Council, University of Alaska Advisory Board, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Community Commander Program, Arts & Business Council of New York, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Alaska State Council on the Arts.

Prior to his career in nonprofit leadership, Allen spent a decade traveling the world as a professional concert and opera singer. His professional performance credits include Opéra National de Paris; Teatro Real Madrid; Bregenz Festpiel. Austria; Rudolfinum, Prague; Carnegie Hall; St. Petersburg State Symphony, Russia; Metropolitan Opera and the Aspen Music Festival.

Allen holds degrees from UCLA and the Boston Conservatory. He is a Fellow of the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program through Harvard Business School, University of Michigan, and University of Texas at Austin.