Manchester Journal staff | Feb 6, 2025 Updated Feb 6, 2025
MANCHESTER — The Manchester Music Festival (MMF) has named David Whitehill as executive director of the distinguished 51-year-old festival, MMF Board Chair Alison Denis Longley announced this week. Whitehill will be responsible for the administrative leadership of the organization, which presents a five-week summer chamber music festival featuring internationally acclaimed musicians and operates the competitive Young Artists Program, both scheduled this year for July 10-Aug. 7, 2025. An award-winning leader in the field with diverse and impactful experience at the highest level, Whitehill assumes his role at MMF effective Feb. 24, 2025.
“We are all thrilled about David’s appointment as our new executive director,” Longley said. “With his extensive background in music and leadership, he is poised to help us lead MMF into the future.”
Whitehill will work alongside MMF Artistic Director Philip Setzer, the renowned violinist and a founding member of the venerable Emerson String Quartet, who begins his second year in the role with the 2025 season.
“It is always gratifying to engage with a colleague to share our ideas about music and musicians, and I find doing so with David to be especially rewarding,” Setzer said. “He has wide-ranging experience leading non-profit arts organizations, and, importantly, a keen and probing appreciation of music—not only of classical music, but of a vast range of genres and styles. With an unbounded enthusiasm for connecting audiences with art, I find within David a limitless trove of ideas to make those connections possible. I am greatly looking forward to working with him and to the new era of leadership at MMF.”
An award-winning arts and culture leader with more than 20 years of experience from Maine to California, Whitehill's passion for arts education and community engagement has shaped his leadership roles, including executive director of the Asheville (N.C.), Reading (Pa.), and Bangor (Maine) symphony orchestras, as well as president and CEO of ArtsinStark, a united arts fund and countywide arts council in Canton, Ohio.
Whitehill was an arts administrator at the Laguna Beach Music Festival, a multi-day series of classical and contemporary concerts, community engagement, and residencies in Orange County, Calif. He also created Asheville Amadeus, a biennial festival celebrating creativity within the Asheville community — including music, dance, food, beer, art, theatre and more — with headlining artists including Emanuel Ax, Midori, and Warren Haynes.
While in Maine, Whitehill was honored by the Portland Press Herald as one of the 40 top Young Business and Community Leaders in the state. Whitehill is a former board member of the League of American Orchestras. In 2019, Musical America recognized Whitehill as one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Performing Arts.
In California, Whitehill was an arts administrator with the Pacific Symphony and the Philharmonic Society, where he worked with acclaimed ensembles including the London, Israel, Warsaw, and New York philharmonic orchestras. Whitehill has worked with artists and musicians including Woody Allen, the Drummers of West Africa, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and Linda Ronstadt.
"I’m thrilled to join the Manchester Music Festival and become part of such a vibrant community," Whitehill said. "It’s an honor to work alongside Philip Setzer, whose contributions to chamber music are legendary. Together, we’re passionate about creating an unforgettable experience that attracts music lovers, nurtures emerging talent and brings the most renowned classical musicians to Manchester. Our vision is to build on the festival’s rich legacy, offering a space for artistic growth, cultural exchange, and community connection while continuing to elevate the arts in this beautiful region."
A founding member of the nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet, violinist Philip Setzer was appointed artistic director of the Manchester Music Festival and Young Artists Program in 2024. In addition to his critically acclaimed performances on the world’s top concert stages, Setzer is a respected educator, mentor, and coach, having trained scores of musicians throughout his notable career. Setzer serves as distinguished professor of violin and chamber music at Stony Brook University, visiting professor of violin and artistic director of string chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and director of the Shouse Institute of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.