Opera America has announced that Deborah F. Rutter, former president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, will be the keynote speaker at Opera Conference 2025.
Rutter served as the first woman president of the Kennedy Center from 2014 to 2025. She left the position after President Donald Trump appointed new board members.
Following her departure, Rutter commented on the future of the institution, stating, “I’m really, really, really sad about what happens to our artists, what happens on our stages and our staff who support them. The Kennedy Center is meant to be a beacon for the arts in all of America across the country.”
Opera Conference 2025 is scheduled to take place from May 20-23, 2025, in Memphis.
Deborah F. Rutter is an internationally respected arts executive with over four decades of leadership at premier cultural institutions. Throughout her career, she has been an ardent fan of opera, having forged collaborative relationships with LA Opera and Seattle Opera and championed the work of Washington National Opera. From 2014 to 2025, she served as the first female president of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she led a period of transformative growth while centering artists in all aspects of the institution’s work.
At the Kennedy Center, Rutter expanded the institution’s artistic and educational programming across genres and audiences; developed an innovative exploration of arts and well-being in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Arts; and spearheaded the Kennedy Center’s first physical expansion, the REACH – an immersive learning center, public incubator, and set of dynamic, collaborative spaces. During her tenure, Rutter was also responsible for increasing the Kennedy Center’s endowment by 62% to $162 million.
Rutter began her career at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and went on to serve as executive director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (1992–2003) and president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2003–2014). She is a board member of Vital Voices and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
