Janet Luhrs, Executive Director of The Jazz Gallery

Meet Janet Luhrs, Executive Director of performing arts nonprofit The Jazz Gallery, located at 1158 Broadway, 5th Floor in NoMad.

1. As The Jazz Gallery is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, tell us more about its history and mission.

The Jazz Gallery has been dedicated to presenting the best in Jazz for the last 30 years. Core to our mission is showcasing and nurturing emerging Jazz artists and also providing a platform for established musicians to experiment and expand their creativity. Founded by renowned trumpeter Roy Hargrove, vocalist Lezlie Harrison and anthropologist Dale Fitzgerald in what was Roy’s rehearsal space at 290 Hudson Street, The Jazz Gallery moved to NoMad to Broadway and 27th Street in 2013.

We are very proud of the many MacArthur Fellows, Doris Duke Artists, Grammy and Thelonious Monk Award winners who cut their teeth on The Jazz Gallery stage.

2. The Jazz Gallery is a founding partner for the inaugural NoMad Jazz Festival. What are you most excited about for this first-of-its-kind festival in the neighborhood?

Jazz is a genre that has the ability to foster understanding, encourage unity and deepen humanity. It has long been our vision to bring great Jazz to a larger audience and the NoMad Jazz Festival enables us to share this fabulous music with the entire community. For me that’s thrilling!

3. As the Executive Director of The Jazz Gallery, describe your role and what aspect of your job excites you the most?

An Executive Director is responsible for the entire operation of the organization to fulfill the mission, carry out projects and achieve goals. In addition to oversight of the staff (be it 1 or 10 or 100) a major part of the role is interacting with the Board of Directors to embark on a vision and direction that propels the organization forward while at the same time maintaining financial stability. I often say..I’m in charge of ‘turning on the lights’. What excites me most about being the Executive Director of The Jazz Gallery is to sit in the audience, take in a performance and know that what I do had even a little to do with bringing that performance to the stage.

4. What led you to choose a career at a performing arts nonprofit?

I didn’t choose a career at a nonprofit arts organization. I doubt if that position was available to women at that time, very little was. I started out in television after ‘banging on a lot of doors’, eventually became a producer that led to the founding and management of a trade association of television production companies and that became my introduction to nonprofit management. From there I ran a professional choral music organization and then in 2013, I joined The Jazz Gallery.

5. For those aspiring to work in this field, what professional advice can you share?

The Arts…not an easy field to break into so my first advice would be to ‘get your foot in the door’ with any position and work hard, very hard. Then make sure this is your passion because the arts are consuming and will rarely compensate in salary as do other fields, but the intangible rewards are so worth it.  

6. When you’re taking a break from The Jazz Gallery, how do you like to spend your time in Flatiron & NoMad?
Dine. And in the summer sit, drink, and people watch.

7. Finally, choose three words to describe Flatiron & NoMad.

Fun! Vibrant! “In”!

Header & Thumbnail Photo Credit: The Jazz Gallery