Linda Weise
Dedicated to providing access to quality arts, arts education, and cultural experiences for all.
About Linda
Linda Weise is currently the President and CEO of the Colorado Springs Community Cultural Collective (CSCCC). She has dedicated her life to providing access to quality arts, arts education and cultural experiences to all. Her current role includes manifesting work force programs in the creative sector, many of which are the first in the state of Colorado.
Linda is graduate of Oberlin Conservatory with a B.M. in piano and vocal performance and M.M. in Opera Performance. She continued her post- graduate work at the Juilliard School for Opera Studies. She has lived in Colorado since 1992. Additionally, her studies and performance experience included Chautauqua Institution and the Aspen Music Festival.
She is married to her husband Keith and has two beautiful and talented daughters, Christina and Kelsy, both of whom work alongside Linda at the CSCCC.
Community Cultural Collective at City Aud and Opus Creative Industries
The Community Cultural Collective began as the reimagining for the historic Colorado Springs City Auditorium. Linda and her team were awarded the RFP in 2019 after much scrutiny from the City of Colorado Springs and Mayor John Suthers, various state and local historic organizations and community leadership. The vision of a true ‘Cultural Hub’ for the region and State, the $86,000,000 project team included Semple Brown Design and Saunders Norwood, both acclaimed, state-wide experts in historic preservation and adaptive reuse capital projects.
Linda and the team worked alongside the Board of Directors to make the case for the vision that would include creative workforce programs that had not yet existed in the state. The Business Model put forth demonstrated long term sustainability and access to all. During the design phase of the capital portion of the project, Linda was able to work alongside the Pikes Peak Workforce Center and the State Department of Labor to capture a $2,000,000 Innovations Grant that afforded the team to launch the programs in the fields of Culinary/Hospitality, Early Childhood Enrichment, and Creative Technologies.
Each of these industry sectors were hit hard during Covid and needed an infusion of workforce. These unique ‘earn and learn’ programs were launched with the culinary program alone heralding an 89% placement and retention with industry partners that included the Broadmoor and Flying Horse to name a few.
Once the design process started in 2021, Cultural Collective project at the City Auditorium, Linda and the team were able to raise over $6,000,000 of State, Federal, Corporate and private funds. The team managed a significant budget that was under constant scrutiny based on Government procurement. In the summer of 2023, a decision was made by the Board of Directors to step away from the Capital portion of the project based on priorities set forth by a newly elected city administration.
This left the CSCCC with the ongoing activities of the Innovations Grant and the establishing and running of the workforce projects. It has been a most exciting and rewarding as the CSCC has since moved on to two new sites in the heart of downtown. A restaurant, event space and teaching kitchen at 1 S. Nevada affords students front of house, back of house, catering, and fine dining multi-course experiences. The Media Arts program is now housed at 105 E Pikes Peak is home to a state-of-the-art learning and workforce lab. The CSCCC recently opened its second culinary space at the El Paso County Citizen Service Center. Each of the programs has already hit benchmarks for earned and found revenue opportunities all while students are paid to learn. The programs have slowly garnered recognition from partners across the state and country.
The Community Cultural Collective programs now fall under the name of Opus Creative Industries with its headquarters at the 1 S Nevada site. Recently opened,l Opus now hosts regular breakfast and lunch service and nightly hosts its own production series or community events five to six evenings a week. A proven model already of sustainability and a hybrid education and social enterprise.
Colorado Springs Conservatory
Linda is the founder of the Colorado Springs Conservatory (CSC). She established the Conservatory in 1994 to bring world-class performing arts education to the region. A non- auditioned program with programming access for young people birth through 19, the Conservatory was heralded with many accolades and awards under Linda’s leadership, the most important being the overwhelming positive impact the Conservatory had on the lives of the hundreds of thousands of young people who studied there and experienced the programming at various levels. It was at the Conservatory and her commitment to affording all students opportunities to experience and participate in studies there that she developed unique civic, arts and education partnerships and programs.
A non-auditioned immersive arts program, the CSC changed lives for the better simply by provided access to studies. What started simply as an afterschool program for youth interested in pursuing performing arts as a career grew to nearly 3,000 youth ages birth through 19 years of age during the height of COVID.
Students were required to study a complete curriculum of arts related studies to include piano, music theory, studio/performance class, music history, recording arts, theater and composition. The curriculum included an enormous amount of outreach. Students in the advanced jazz program could perform at nearly 300+ outreach gigs a year. The programming grew to six days a week with day and evening sessions.
Partnerships included all seventeen regional school districts, Eastern Plains BOCES, 4th Judicial District Restorative Justice Youth programs, Inside Out Youth, Homeschool Academies, Charter Schools and government entities from the Department of Health and Human Services at El Paso County to performing arts partnerships with organizations and state gems such as Central City Opera.
A Positive Note, a music program for young people with physical and mental challenges was launched after the need was identified. Both Linda and the CSC have been recognized throughout the state and across the country with numerous awards to include the National Guild of Community Music Schools Milestone Achievement award and the coveted William Funk Award from the Colorado Nonprofit Association.
Accolades for providing and making accessible to all who are interested in outstanding arts immersion studies, the Conservatory has been changing lives for nearly 29 years now. She had stepped away from the CSC to champion with Community Cultural Collective project.
Simple Gift Series and Simple Gift Schoolhouse
Linda is also the creator of the early childhood music and literacy program, Simple Gift Series. Created at the onset of COVID, she and six Colorado Springs Conservatory alumni were able to bring essential and creative learning to young children across Colorado and come January 2022, the rest of the nation. The program aired on PBS nationally for two years and is now the web based program, Simple Gift Schoolhouse, providing creative curriculum development to early childhood educators around the globe. In 2021 the Conservatory and the Simple Gift Series team was awarded the Edward Ziegler Innovation Award from the National Head Start Association.
The Simple Gift Schoolhouse programming and training has been transforming lives since its inception in 2000 with partners at CPCD Head Start. However, it is most recently since COVID and the evolution, needs and demands of the Early Childhood Care and Education landscape that the Simple Gift Schoolhouse programs have proven to become an important and satisfying part of a child’s most important developmental years.
In 2021, Linda, the CSCCC and SGS partnered with Joint Initiatives/Alliance for kids to better support the vast landscape of needs in the Early Childhood realm. This creatively, smart and unique industry led and informed’ program has come to serve educators, administrators in ways that far supersede anyone’s wildest expectations or imaginations. Linda has brought the SGS training to more than 500+ educators across the Pikes Peak Region and along the front range since 2022.
In 2021, Linda and Joint Initiatives instituted a free ‘Playgroup’ specifically to the Friends, Families and Neighbors (FFN) networks. This particular group is challenged with curriculum resources as well as socialization opportunities and the SGS Playgroups have now become a staple in literally thousands of family’s lives. Counties from across Colorado are seeking to duplicate the model. She currently has a class of elementary age students in Meru, Kenya Africa that she brings much and creativity to once a week over zoom.
The Mezzanine
During her tenure at the Conservatory, Linda created a unique venue partnership with a locally renowned nightclub owner. The Mezzanine became the go to place downtown. Hosting evening performances in the intimacy of a 150 seat theater, the Mezzanine also afforded the students and in particular the CSC alumni a place to perform when they returned home to Colorado Springs.
The Mezzanine hosted visiting artists to include Santa Fe Opera, Austin Piazolla and many chamber music groups looking to launch new works. The Mezzanine produced musical theater works such as ‘The Last 5 Years’, ‘Cabaret’, ‘The Fantastiks’ and a myriad of operetta to include Gilbert and Sullivan.
Impresario
She has also directed and produced many musical and operatic works to include a number of Menotti operas with the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs. Seen by thousands of audience members these included ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’, ‘Martin’s Lie’, ‘The Medium’, ‘Help, Help the Globolinks’ and ‘Chip and His Dog’. Musical Theater productions included, ‘Oklahoma’, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘Oliver’, ‘Songs for a New World’, ‘Spelling Bee’, “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown’ and many more.
Author and Composer
Linda has composed several pieces for young people to include 2 full length musicals, ‘Jack, a moral musical tale’ and ‘Henry and Greta’. Additionally she has written and self published over 250 songs and 39 books for her Simple Gift Series Early Childhood program.
Entrepreneur
Prior to moving to Colorado in the early 1990’s Linda had a myriad of work experiences that ultimately complimented and served her well in her career as an arts and culture champion. For a period of time, Linda was part of the development team at the Richard Tucker Foundation. Additionally, she worked three years at Citicorp Investment Bank as a trading assistant.
Always interested in economics and entrepreneurship, she recognizes that these experiences afforded her the opportunity to learn and better understand how business and the arts work in tandem to best further access to cultural experiences for all. She has a formidable reputation for creating new and innovate partnerships with the corporate community members in communities.
Leadership
She has served on a number of Boards of Directors to include being a Governor appointee to the Colorado Humanities, the Colorado Springs Leadership Institute, the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, and the Central City Opera Regional Council. Linda is no stranger to working alongside legislators at the state and national level.
She has been called upon by local and regional leaders as well to work on strategy for various related issues and policy from the importance of quality after school programs to funding for cultural activities. In 2023, Linda was awarded the Business Leader of the Year Award from the Southern Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce as well as the Everest Award from the Pikes Peak Regional Advertisers.
She has most recently been awarded the regional Jefferson Award for the State of Colorado and has been nominated nationally for the Jacqueline Onassis Award for Commitment to Community. She will travel to New York City for that conference and her award.
The ‘Why’
Linda Weise has been recognized as a bit of an enigma. A highly trained, world-class performing artist, cultural leader, fundraiser, program developer and teacher she is most passionate in continuing to provide access to excellence in all fields of the humanities and culture for all citizens for the betterment of the world.
Community Cultural Collective & Opus Creative Industries
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