Quiala has been a lifelong advocate for arts and culture access and equity, for which she will be recognized with a spotlight award from the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, Connecticut later this month. She serves on boards of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) and Theater for Young Audiences (TYA USA). In 2021 and 2022, she led humanitarian and cultural delegations from Connecticut to Havana, Cuba for the Havana Jazz Festival.  Quiala is proud to have lobbied before the Connecticut state legislature on the importance of arts and culture investments in a strong and healthy economy.   

Shelley Quiala’s selection was the culmination of a competitive nationwide search for an Executive Director led by Arts Consulting Group (ACG), hired by the Cantus Board to recruit a new Executive Director. 

“Our yearlong search for Cantus’s Executive Director attracted dozens of highly qualified candidates from across the US,” says board chair Brian Newhouse. “The field was diverse and passionate about the impact Cantus makes and seeks to expand. Shelley stood out immediately: her years of highly successful executive leadership in nonprofit arts management, her vision to serve an ever-wider audience locally, nationally and internationally, and her success at broadening a network of enthusiastic supporters – all these made her the perfect fit for Cantus.”

About Shelley Quiala

Shelley Quiala is an executive in the performing arts and humanities and a lifelong advocate for arts and culture access and equity is excited to join the Cantus organization as the new Executive Director.  She is currently a senior strategist in programming and development for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut, where she served as Executive Director from August 2020 to October 2024.  Arts & Ideas presents hundreds of artists and speakers annually in venues in and around downtown New Haven. Since 2020, these have included Wynton Marsalis, Baratunde Thurston, Angelique Kidjo, Brooklyn Rider, Toshi Reagan, Amy Tan, Jon Secada, and Dolores Huerta. During Shelley’s tenure, Arts & Ideas began offering programming in Spanish, built a full-time staff and board to more closely align with the racial diversity of New Haven, and increased contributed revenue by 50 percent.   The work been recognized and awarded by the Greater New Haven Chapter of the NAACP, the Gateway Community College Foundation New Haven’s Freddy Fixer Parade Committee, and the Jamaican American Connection.  In October 2024, Quiala will accept a spotlight award from the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Shelley previously served as Vice President of Programming, Education, and Community Engagement at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Under her leadership, concerts, comedy, dance, and educational programming reached more than 150,000 people annually.   

Among her community service efforts are serving on national boards such as the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) and Theater for Young Audiences (TYA USA), and as a mentor with Dance USA in the Dance Institute for Leadership.  In Connecticut, she has served on the boards of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and the Connecticut Tourism Coalition and has lobbied before the state legislature on the importance of arts and culture investments in a strong and healthy economy.  In 2021 and 2022 Shelley led humanitarian and cultural delegations from Connecticut to Havana, Cuba for the Havana Jazz Festival.  Shelley graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a double major in Spanish and Performance as a Medium for Social Change.   

She and her husband Tony, reside in Edina, Minnesota along with their children.