UC Berkeley performing arts
pioneer Betty Connors, longtime director of the center that
would become Cal Performances, died of natural causes in her
Richmond, Calif. home on June 11. She was 92.
Connors led the
Committee for Arts and Lectures from 1945 to 1979 and was the
center's first full-time employee.
"She had high
standards of taste," said Robert Cole, current director of Cal
Performances. "If you look at the list of names that she brought
here, these were all the greatest artists of that time without
question."
Connors grew up
in Great Falls, Mont. and was a student at the University of
Iowa. She visited her brother, a UC Berkeley undergraduate at
the time, in 1939 while attending the San Francisco World's
Fair, according to Christina Kellogg, a spokesperson for the
center.
"She stayed on to
marry Joe Connors, her brother's college roommate, and she
completed her undergraduate degree here at Cal, "Kellogg said.
"In the university, she played viola, and started to organize
concerts at local venues . . . just because she loved it."
After graduating
with a degree in music in 1945, Connors began working full-time
for the committee--which previously had only part-time faculty
employees--and arranged 36 music events in her first year,
according to Kellogg.
Connors, who was
responsible for "unprecedented growth in the quantity and range
of events," was active in performing arts presentation outside
of campus as well, according to a press release by the center.
In 1958, Connors
joined what would become the Association of Performing Arts
Presenters and received the Fan Taylor Distinguished Service
Award in 1979 for her "outstanding career and exemplary service
in the field of arts administration," according to the release.
Connors worked
with Jerry Willis, then presenting director at the California
Institute of Technology, in founding the Western Arts
Alliance--which helped artists arrange West Coast tours and now
has more than 550 members--in 1967, according to the release.
"(She was)
important not just at UC Berkeley but across California, across
the West Coast," Kellogg said.
In 1979, Connors
retired and received the Berkeley Citation, which is awarded to
those who "significantly exceed the standards of excellence in
their fields and whose contributions to UC Berkeley are
manifestly above and beyond the call of duty, "according to the
release.
Danny Nilles,
master carpenter at the center who met Connors while working as
an electrician in Zellerbach Hall in 1976, said she was
extremely cordial to all visiting artists and guests at the
theatre.
"She pretty much
put the program in motion," Nilles said. "(She) laid a real
solid foundation for Cal Performances to build upon."
__________
Ovadia, Tomer.
"Former Performing Arts Director Passes Away at 92." The
Daily
Californian. Thursday, June 18, 2009, p. 2.