Rachel Fine joined Yale Schwarzman Center as executive director in October 2022 following her tenure as executive director and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
Fine commenced work at The Wallis in its first 18 months of operation, following a 19-year capital campaign and building project to convert the historic Beverly Hills Post Office into a vibrant cultural hub and performing arts campus for Southern California. Between 2015 and 2022, she established The Wallis as a major player and leading cultural organization in Los Angeles' burgeoning arts scene; built dynamic artistic partnerships and projects between The Wallis and Los Angeles' cultural organizations; demonstrated deep dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion and access; launched and implemented a $55 million campaign, which more than doubled the organization's endowment and established a healthy cash reserve in the campaign's first year; and steered and managed The Wallis successfully through the pandemic.
Also a concert pianist, Fine attended the Music Academy of the West and Eastman School of Music. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Irvine, and received the Distinguished Alumna Award from UCI’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Other educational pursuits led her to Yale for graduate school, where she studied musicology, and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where she was an arts management fellow.
Prior to her tenure at The Wallis, Fine was executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (2010-2015) and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (2007-2010). In 2009, she founded and built the Los Angeles Children's Chorus' Young Men's Ensemble, a rare chorus for boys with changing voices, and which has toured the United States, Canada, Cuba, Vatican City, and Mexico City.
With the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Fine introduced and produced “Play Me, I'm Yours,” a citywide piano installation and community art project. She also conceived and produced Strad Fest, a weeklong international festival of Stradivarius violins. Additionally, Fine has held leadership positions at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Opera, and The Juilliard School, among others.
Fine is married to Christopher Hawthorne, formerly the chief design officer for the City of Los Angeles and architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times. Hawthorne teaches courses in journalism, criticism, and urban design at Yale College and the Yale School of Architecture and writes frequently for distinguished publications including the New York Times and New Yorker. Fine and Hawthorne have two daughters and live happily in New Haven, CT.