Biography + programmatic history

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Robb Woulfe’s experience in the arts and entertainment industry extends over 25 years, having held positions in the public, nonprofit, and commercial sectors. Recognized as a cultural entrepreneur and curator of ideas, spaces, and talent, he has helped transform organizations and animate communities through memorable, high-impact arts experiences, using big thinking and inspirational storytelling as a way to increase audiences, build profile, and strengthen support.

Robb currently advises on creative and curatorial projects that foster community-building, place/space-making, and economic development. Past clients and partners include Park City Municipal, Kimball Art Center, and Sundance Institute.

His leadership background ranges from senior artistic and producing positions to executive, general management, and board roles, with successful tenures at various institutions. Sound financial acumen and an agile, adaptive approach have been hallmarks of his career, helping him steer organizations through recessions, natural disasters, and even a pandemic.

Recently, for the past five years, Robb was executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), a hub for progressive museum thinking that works at the intersection of visual culture, humanities, and social engagement. There, he acted as chief spokesperson and strategist, identifying opportunities and connecting people, programs, and place.

Among his contributions were staging several noteworthy exhibitions and large-scale public installations; introducing two biennial multi-arts festivals; advancing meaningful research and collections digitization efforts; and extending the reach of the institution through a ‘museum without walls’ initiative. His work to champion artistic excellence, heritage preservation, and interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in grant awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Institute of Museum and Library Services, California State Library, Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions, and other prominent funders.

Also at the MAH, he increased brand visibility and attracted new audiences through monumental and ephemeral works produced to reframe the local landscape, including activations at an iconic wharf, historic cemetery, decommissioned jail, seaside amusement park, and more. These and other projects helped to further the museum’s reputation for access and innovation, earning it recognition in Architectural Digest, Forbes, American Craft, Juxtapoz, Air Mail, and The New Yorker.

Robb previously served as founding president and CEO of Breckenridge Creative Arts (BCA), a public-private partnership designed to leverage and grow creative assets and resources throughout Breckenridge, Colorado, one of the top mountain resort destinations in the world. In this capacity, he was responsible for providing vision, leadership, artistic direction, and curatorial oversight for an extensive portfolio of multidisciplinary programs and events.

During his time in Breckenridge, he led many bold and ambitious initiatives that included: conceiving and launching a series of popular exhibits and attractions, including the now signature Breckenridge International Festival of Arts (BIFA); developing a year-round presenting program featuring performing arts, lectures, and films; opening and activating the new Breckenridge Arts District campus; designing an artist residency program focused on social and environmental impact; and introducing a wider, more coherent public art strategy. His producing work in the market includes numerous North American premieres, site-specific commissions, and regional and statewide collaborations.

Additionally, his leadership at BCA brought about a number of honors and accolades, including earning Breckenridge the top ranking in the U.S. Arts Vibrancy Index for small communities; receiving a state-certified creative district designation; winning the prestigious Colorado Governor’s Award for Outstanding Community Tourism Initiative; and being featured in the Public Art Network Year in Review, a national program that recognizes the most compelling public art in America. His work also successfully garnered media coverage in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Jetsetter, Atlas Obscura, AFAR, Curbed, Thrillist, and other leading travel and lifestyle publications.

Robb was recruited to the Breckenridge position after having been executive and artistic director of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival (A2SF), an annual three-week celebration of arts, culture, and community that is presented in partnership with the City of Ann Arbor and University of Michigan.

His decade-long stewardship of A2SF transformed the festival's scale and influence, elevating it to one of the premier multi-arts festivals in the country. Key accomplishments included: growing and diversifying audiences, enhancing programs, broadening funding, renewing brand identity, and strengthening the organization’s infrastructure and governance. During his tenure, he produced some of the highest-grossing seasons in the festival’s history, which included introducing dozens of national and international artists to the region alongside hundreds of local performers.

Robb came to Ann Arbor having served as managing director of the Music Society at the Midland Center for the Arts in Midland, Michigan, where he presented a wide range of offerings. Before that, he was programming manager at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he organized the multicultural planet Ordway season, Performing Arts Classroom educational series, and the critically acclaimed International Children’s Festival.

Prior to returning to his hometown of Saint Paul, he worked in New York’s film and television industry. He spent several years as an assistant in the International Licensing Division of Jim Henson Productions. Previous to the Muppets, he provided administrative support in the Co-Productions Department of BBC Lionheart, an affiliate of BBC Television.

Robb has been an invited speaker and panelist at cultural forums including Arts Midwest, Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Colorado Creative Industries, Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. He holds a B.A. from Hamline University.

PROGRAMMING PORTFOLIO
With a taste for blurring the boundaries of high art, popular culture, and broad public entertainment, Robb brings a passion for multidisciplinary performance, outdoor spectacle, site-specific work, and contemporary visual arts. Over the past three decades he has programmed leading artists and thinkers from around the world, with highlights including: celebrated dance companies Pilobolus, STREB Extreme Action, BANDALOOP, Rennie Harris Puremovement, MOMIX, Diavolo, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and legendary dancer/choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov; acclaimed stage director Ratan Thiyam’s Chorus Repertory Theatre of Manipur; puppet masters Teatro Hugo & Ines, Kawasemi-za, and Erth; physical theater innovators Circa, Les 7 doigts de la main, Cirque Éloize, Gravity & Other Myths, and Casus Circus; and international street theater troupes Close-Act, Strange Fruit, Polyglot Theatre, and The Dream Engine.

He has also presented an eclectic mix of literary and spoken word programs, including The Moth Mainstage, Snap Judgment, Nat Geo Live, 33 1/3 reading series, and engagements with poet-rapper Will Power, provocateur John Waters, filmmaker Kevin Smith, and NPR humorists Garrison Keillor, Ira Glass, and David Sedaris.

As a concert promoter, he is credited with a variety of events, including: new classical artists ETHEL, Ahn Trio, Turtle Island Quartet, Maya Beiser, Steven Schick, and Michael Ward-Bergeman; orchestral works by contemporary composers John Luther Adams, David Lang, Anna Thorvaldsdottír, and Phil Kline; jazz performers Diana Krall, Chick Corea, Dianne Reeves, Esperanza Spalding, and Trombone Shorty; Broadway luminaries Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin, Bebe Neuwirth, and Savion Glover; and performance artists Sandra Bernhard, Taylor Mac, Neal Medlyn, and Meow Meow. He has also presented a long list of contemporary pop musicians that includes Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Steve Martin, k.d. lang, John Hiatt, Chris Isaak, Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, Andrew Bird, Devo, Gilberto Gil, Cesaria Evora, Angélique Kidjo, Pink Martini, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Feist, Amadou & Mariam, Zap Mama, Calexico, KT Tunstall, Femi Kuti, Patty Griffin, Rhiannon Giddens, Rufus Wainwright, Ani DiFranco, DeVotchKa, José González, Django Django, The Revivalists, and many more.

Robb’s curatorial interest in cross-disciplinary and hybrid practices—particularly those at the intersection of media, technology, and screen culture—has led him to present numerous film/music projects including indie-pop duo Dean and Britta's 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, composer Benoît Charest’s The Triplets of Belleville featuring Le Terrible Orchestre de Belleville, and filmmaker Prashant Bhargava’s Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi with pianist Vijay Iyer, along with multimedia productions by Compagnia TPO, Manual Cinema, and DJ Spooky. In addition, he has commissioned and programmed many site-specific and digital media installations by international visual artists including Ai Weiwei, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Konstantin Dimopoulos, Thomas Dambo, Amanda Parer, Craig Walsh, Hiromi Tango, Albert Paley, Giuseppe Licari, Tom Dekyvere, Cédric Le Borgne, Kaz Shirane, Edina Tokodi, Jim Denevan, and others.

An advocate for place-based development and community collaboration, he regularly presents on topics related to activating public spaces through art, and using innovation and creative practice to build vibrant, livable cities. Over his career, he has worked on and supported projects involving some of the world’s foremost designers, urban planners, and spatial artists, including Bjarke Ingels Group, Lake|Flato, Esrawe + Cadena, ATOMIC3, Lateral Office, CS Design, APPAREIL Architecture, SmithGroup, ACTLD, Ekumen, Wildbytes, OGE Group, Squidsoup, and HYBYCOZO.

But by far Robb’s favorite place and space is at home with his wife and their adorable golden retriever.