Ella Baff

Ella Baff has received several awards in the cultural field including the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. In 2010, she was named one of the "Top 25 Most Influential and Powerful People in the Arts" by Inside Arts Magazine. In 2012, she Co-chaired the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) Congress in New York. Ms. Baff is the Executive and Artistic Director of Jacob's Pillow, an international dance Festival, professional School, and Archives located in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. Under Ms. Baff's leadership, Jacob's Pillow was designated a National Historic Landmark, and in 2011, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama at the White House. Ms. Baff is from New York City and has studied classical music and dance. Some of her past positions have included Program Director at Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, which commissioned and presented the arts from around the world, and Project Director of national outreach for an arts series on WNET public television in New York. She has been a consultant for foundations, government, and not-for-profit organizations and has been invited by U.S. and international government agencies and arts organizations to be a speaker and panelist. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA.)