CIM names imaginative, ambitious arts and education leader Scott Harrison as EVP & Provost

Innovative academic leadership structure now complete with naming of Jerrod Price, Dean Southern and Madeline Lucas Tolliver as Deans.

The Cleveland Institute of Music announced today that Scott Harrison will become the Institute’s first Executive Vice President and Provost on August 16. Coming to Cleveland on the heels of a 20-year career in the field of classical music that includes leadership and executive positions in esteemed orchestras in Detroit, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Hawaii, and co-founding the international music education and youth development non-profit BLUME Haiti, Harrison has been described by the Los Angeles Times as a leader with “imagination and ambition.”

The Provost role is a new one for CIM. Harrison will be a creative partner to a strategically driven and innovative President – as well as an equally driven and supportive Board of Trustees, faculty, staff and student body – in conceiving, developing, implementing and assessing forward-thinking initiatives. Harrison will provide the vision, imagination and leadership required to foster the musical, intellectual, community and artistic development of CIM’s student artists, faculty and staff, while enhancing the Institute's capacity to prepare CIM graduates, from Pre-College to the Conservatory, for successful futures.

In reflecting upon joining CIM, Harrison says: “Since the establishment of the CIM standard by Ernest Bloch, the Cleveland Institute of Music has blazed a distinctive path in the American classical music landscape. In this new role, I look forward to supporting the aspirations and artistry of a bold and conscientious circle of performers, leaders, thinkers and givers who will ensure a future for classical music that is vibrant, connected and equitable, with our graduates becoming providers of joy, meaning and healing for the communities they will impact during their careers.”

“Scott has the demonstrated success in managing organizational change, a collaborative approach to leadership and the ability to be an effective advocate and ambassador for CIM,” said CIM President & CEO Paul W. Hogle. “I’m thrilled that he will be joining CIM at such an important time and look forward to working with him to ensure our students are positioned for success.

“CIM is an adventurous, innovative, diverse and sustainable global force in music education, with a mission to empower the world’s finest classical music students to achieve their dreams and artistic potential. To continue this, Scott will challenge the status quo, be a creative partner who shares a strong commitment to strengthen and extend CIM’s reputation, bring entrepreneurial thinking, rigorous analysis and a collaborative spirit to support future strategy and thinking.”

The Provost will work closely with President Hogle to enhance the Institute’s brand and profile and will both challenge and derive inspiration from his and the Board’s thinking. The portfolio of responsibilities includes the core mission of the institution, ranging from academic to student affairs, pre-college programs to recruitment and artistic programs to service to the Cleveland community. In addition, the Provost will be a visible and inspiring leader for CIM’s artistic and academic mission, providing vision and passion to propel the institution forward.

Harrison will lead an exceptionally qualified and accomplished team, strengthened by today’s announcement that Jerrod Price, Dean Southern and Madeline Lucas Tolliver have been named as full deans of the Institute. Their appointments complete the installation of CIM’s innovative leadership structure, referred to as “The Dean Team.” Each Dean will report directly to Harrison and serve on the President's Council. Price has been named Dean of Musician and Community Advancement; Southern becomes Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Conservatory; Tolliver will serve as Dean of Artistic Administration and Operations.

“For the past year, CIM’s students have benefited from the outstanding, fearless and wise leadership of these three interim deans, ensuring academic and artistic standards were met and exceeded while maintaining a supportive culture to increase student success,” said Hogle. “Making these three appointments permanent not only recognizes the outstanding work of Jerrod, Dean and Maddi, but also positions CIM for future innovation and student success. We are fortunate to retain their talent and leadership of their all-star teams.”

About Scott Harrison

Celebrated as a leader with “imagination and ambition” by the LA Times and “a pioneer in the use of digital technology” by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Scott Harrison has secured tens of millions of dollars in funding for cultural organizations nationwide while designing initiatives that are changing artistic practice, music education and community engagement via inclusivity and entrepreneurship. He has led many organizations through uncertain times, helping to build compelling cases for their futures, refresh programming and curriculums, inspire external and internal stakeholders, weather changing environments with resolve, adopt more equitable practices, embrace media opportunities and enhance local and international visibility.

Harrison has worked with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) as interim executive director since July 2020, launching a reimagined season of virtual and socially distanced activity with the all-digital Orpheum Sessions and outdoor Music at the Museum series as its flagship offerings. Recognized by the New York Times and New Yorker, the LPO presented over 700 engagements that reached over 70,000 audience members, despite the pandemic, with collaborators like new creative partner Courtney Bryan, trumpeter/composer Nicholas Payton, violinist Jennifer Koh and Grammy-nominated band Tank and the Bangas. The community responded enthusiastically, with the number of donors up 35% and an unprecedented $1M+ in major gifts. 

As interim executive director of the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, Harrison guided the organization to new levels of sustainability, raising $1.5M in under six months, through an integrated cultural, strategic and fundraising plan. As executive director of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he launched the LA Orchestra Fellowship, creating pathways for aspiring Black and Latinx professional musicians in partnership with the Inner City Youth Orchestra of LA and USC Thornton School of Music, and the critically acclaimed SESSION, which married music and movement through a partnership with the immersive theatre company Four Larks. As vice president of advancement and external relations and executive producer of digital media at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Harrison developed Live from Orchestra Hall, a global platform for virtual concerts with over one million viewers worldwide, including 100,000 students tuning into specially produced “Classroom Edition” webcasts, while contributing to a widely embraced shift in the orchestra’s relationship to Detroit.

Deeply committed to arts education as a right and a believer in the power of cultural diplomacy, Harrison is a founding board member of BLUME Haiti, which supports youth and community development with more than 40 partner music schools, and has helped forge ties with the Colburn School, Interlochen Center for the Arts and Sphinx Organization to further the development of Haitian music students. A graduate of Northwestern University (BM, bassoon, and BA, political science), Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts (MM, bassoon) and executive education programs including National Arts Strategies’ Chief Executive Program and Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, Harrison has also taught bassoon across the western hemisphere and spoken, facilitated and coached for the League of American Orchestras, Tessitura Network, Global Leaders Program, Indiana Public Broadcasting, Classical:Next, Arts Midwest, Association of California Symphony Orchestras and Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras.

The Dean Team

In 2020, President Hogle appointed three individuals as interim deans and tasked them with working together to lead CIM’s educational enterprise, ranging from the preparatory/pre-college program to the conservatory to the artistic administration which is the connective tissue which unifies CIM’s learning environment.

Effective June 14, 2021, Jerrod Price, Dean Southern and Madeline Lucas Tolliver will each become full deans of the Institute, extending the duties and spirit of the Dean Team approach.

Jerrod Price has been named Dean of Musician and Community Advancement and oversees a student-focused portfolio including Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Affairs, CIM², Community Engagement and Preparatory and Continuing Education. Price is a music advocate, arts administrator, strategist and trumpet player. His collaborative, student-focused and metrics-driven approach has led the way towards improved enrollment and increased stability at many of the country’s most celebrated musical institutions, including the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and now at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Price is a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. His trumpet teachers include John Rommel, Charlie Daval, Geoff Hardcastle and Scott Johnston. A native of Ohio, Jerrod, his wife Stephanie and three children live in Shaker Heights.

Dean Southern has been named Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Conservatory, providing leadership, support and oversight of the Institute’s academic programs, including assessment, accreditation and curriculum development. He will continue as the Artistic Director of CIM Opera Theater, holding the Dorothy P. Schmitt Chair in Opera and serving on the voice faculty. Southern’s students have been accepted to prestigious young artist programs and graduate schools and awarded the Fulbright grant, and they have gone on to successful careers as performers and voice teachers. He regularly gives master classes at universities and conservatories in the US and abroad and has taught at summer programs in Austria, Italy, and China. Southern recently served as a Master Teacher at the NATS Intern Program, where he mentored early career voice teachers.

He holds master’s degrees in both piano and voice performance and earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in voice performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Madeline Lucas Tolliver will serve as Chief Artistic Administrator and lead facilities management as Dean of Artistic Administration and Operations. Tolliver previously held posts overseeing CIM’s Preparatory and Continuing Education Division and all Conservatory large ensembles and woodwind chamber programs, in addition to serving as a flute faculty member in the Preparatory Division. A specialist in contemporary music, she is a frequent collaborator with composers and conductors and has premiered more than two dozen works.

Tolliver is a CIM alumna, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2009 and master’s degree in 2011 from the studio of Joshua Smith. Previous teachers include Valerie Simosko (flute) and Jan Herboth (piano). Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Tolliver and her husband currently reside in Cleveland Heights.