Board of Directors

2024-2025

Lee Goldstein, chair
Matt Hammer, secretary/treasurer

Tremaine Atkinson
Bryce Dessner
Megan E. Doherty
Matthew Duvall
Lee Goldstein
Matt Hammer
Lisa Kaplan (ex officio)
Claire Rice
Vanessa Stephens
Peter Taub
Tony Scott-Green
Board Chair Emerita
Kate Bensen

Tremaine Atkinson

Tremaine Atkinson is the co-founder, distiller, and managing director of operations at CH Distillery. After graduating from the University of California, San Diego with an economics degree in 1987, Atkinson moved to San Francisco and became a passionate home brewer. Never one to choose the easy way, he taught himself fermentation science, yeast propagation, and all-grain brewing. Although he loved beer, he dreamed of making vodka, his spirit of choice. Atkinson moved to Chicago in 1998, and after a 25-year career in asset management, decided to start a distillery with his old friend Mark Lucas in 2012. He completed a distillation course at the Siebel Institute and delved into modern fermentation techniques used by distillers. The precision and efficiency Atkinson honed in the finance world lent themselves well to understanding the chemistry and thermodynamics behind making alcohol. CH Distillery was launched in August 2013 with the goal of becoming Chicago’s premiere grain-to-bottle vodka distillery. Prior to founding CH Distillery, Tremaine was Partner, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer for LSV Asset Management, a Chicago-based institutional equity management firm with $80 billion in assets under management.

Bryce Dessner

Bryce Dessner is a vital and rare force in new music. He has won Grammy Awards both as a classical composer and with the band The National, of which he is founding member, guitarist, arranger and co-principal song-writer. He is also an increasingly high-profile presence in the world of film score composition, with credits including Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant. The breadth and level of his output is remarkable, with few artists able to bridge diverse creative worlds with such virtuosity.

A prolific writer with an open-minded musical paradigm, Dessner is in his natural element when collaborating across art forms. His colleagues include the world’s most creative and respected artists such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Alejandro González Iñarritú, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Caroline Shaw, Johnny Greenwood, Bon Iver, Justin Peck, Kelley O’Connor and Ragnar Kjartansson and Nico Muhly.

His rapidly expanding body of works are commissioned by the world’s leading ensembles, making him one of the most sought-after composers of his generation. Dessner has written orchestral, chamber, and vocal compositions for the likes of Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Metropolitan Museum of Art (for the New York Philharmonic), Kronos Quartet, BAM Next Wave Festival, London’s Barbican, Edinburgh International Festival, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Festival, eighth blackbird, Sō Percussion and New York City Ballet. His orchestrations can be heard on the new albums by Paul Simon and Bon Iver, among others.

The music of Bryce Dessner is exclusively published by Chester Music Ltd, part of the Music Sales Group.

Megan E. Doherty

Megan E. Doherty is an award-winning documentary photographer and writer. A recovering academic, she received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2010 and promptly exchanged metaphysics for the even less lucrative world of art. Her multi-year documentary project Back of the Yards won the 2016 Project Development Grant from CENTER, an arts organization that supports socially and environmentally engaged photographic projects—and even got her an invitation for a solo show in Japan. She was co-director of the Seminary Co-op Documentary Project, an independent documentary project on a local bookstore with global renown. Recently, she has focused on reporting stories about chronic illness, medical research, and disability. She was a 2021 fellow at Disability Lead, a leadership institute committed to cultivating a deeper bench of leaders with disabilities who create positive change at the local and national level. 

An unabashed rabbit person, she recently adopted her second shelter bunny, Babar (and still misses Barnaby, who willfully made it to the ripe-old age of 11). She was thrown off a train in Greece, galloped a horse through El Valle de la Muerte, manned the controls of a single engine plane heading back to mainland Iceland from the Westman Islands, almost ran out of gas in the middle of the Atacama desert, hitchhiked in Andorra la Vella, slept on the deck of a boat from Bari to Igoumenitsa, and was nearly killed by a sauna in Finland. She has survived by the grace of qigong, snacks, and the possibility of New Zealand. Megan is not a native of Chicago, IL—but don’t tell her that.

Matthew Duvall

Matthew Duvall is one of Eighth Blackbird’s co-founders, as well as its percussionist and artistic director. He is also the founder and executive producer of Unexpected Outcomes, a Chicago-based production company, and drummer in the band, @dadbandband. Matthew is amazed every day that in spite of the completely weird artist/musician lifestyle he leads, he has the most supportive spouse and kids in the world (and two dogs, and a bearded dragon named Sammy). Personal preoccupations of late include site-specific curation projects, particularly in museum settings, and a series of projects focused on climate science. Most recently, Matthew worked with students at Interlochen Arts Academy to perform his 2018 piece Transient Landscapes, inspired by the effects of climate change in the Florida Keys. He composed Transient Landscapes with Matthew Burtner; it had its premiere at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida.

Lee Goldstein

Lee Goldstein is a Career Technologist with over 37 years of experience in using tech to connect people to the world. Splitting his career evenly between building, running, and selling telecommunications networks and services, he has distinguished himself in leading high-performing corporate organizations by imprinting a brand of team culture that is open, diverse, and caring towards humanity. For example, Lee is the Team Operations Director for AutonomyWorks, a mission based organization focused on Digital Marketing and Ad Operations, Reporting and Analytics, and robotic process automation.  AutonomyWorks is changing the way the world views autism, by being dedicated to the gainful employment of autistic adults. From an early age, Lee has deeply connected with music, listening to, collecting, and learning about every possible music genre. Having traveled the world as High School Marching band member at Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL, Lee put the trumpet down for 40 years to focus on being an Engineer, a Businessperson, a lacrosse player, and a youth baseball coach. One year before joining the Eighth Blackbird’s board, and as part of a personal transformation, Lee began devoting himself to trumpet lessons and has recently joined Arlington Jazz Exchange.  Lee has been a member of the College of Lake County Concert Band for the past couple of years. Lee received his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, with an emphasis in Communication Systems and his MBA in Corporate Finance from the University of Dallas.  

Matt Hammer

Matt Hammer is an investment analyst for Ayco, a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management, where he develops investment strategies for high-net-worth clients. As an investment advisor, Matt holds Series 7 and Series 66 licenses, and completed the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) curriculum in 2016. Matt earned an MS in finance at the Simon School of the University of Rochester. A lifelong devotee of classical music, he previously earned a Bachelor of Music in Music History from Bucknell University, which included a year of study in Vienna. At Bucknell, Matt studied piano for two years with Lois Svard, an advocate of 20th-century repertoire, performing music from Bach to Lutosławski and cultivating a deeper understanding of music’s creative possibilities. Before that, his interest in music goes back to his first piano lessons at age nine. For fun, Matt can often be found at concerts around the city, including the Lyric Opera, the Symphony Center Presents piano series, and Ravinia. Outside of music, he enjoys biking on the lakeshore, hiking, and reading.

Lisa Kaplan

Born in Motown, Lisa Kaplan (executive director) is Eighth Blackbird’s pianist and one of its co-founders. As executive director, Lisa works with 8BB’s board of directors and artistic director to develop long- and short-range plans to meet the organization’s goals, and she oversees fundraising, marketing, finance, and operations. As musical artist, she has won numerous awards, performed all over the country and has premiered new pieces by hundreds of composers, including Andy Akiho, Jennifer Higdon, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, George Perle, Steve Reich and Pamela Z. Lisa has had the great pleasure to collaborate and make music with an eclectic array of incredibly talented people – Laurie Anderson, Jeremy Denk, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Bon Iver, Glenn Kotche, Shara Nova, Will Oldham, Natalie Portman, Dawn Upshaw and Michael Ward-Bergeman to name a few. As a new mom, she has been having an incredible time raising and learning from her happy-go-lucky and feisty toddler, Frida. Lisa is a true foodie, gourmet cook, avid reader, crossword and Scrabble addict, enjoys baking ridiculously complicated pastry and loves outdoor adventures. She has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, braved the Australian outback, stared an enormous elephant in the face in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater, and survived close encounters with grizzly bears in the Brooks Range of Alaska.

Claire Rice

Claire Rice is currently the Executive Director of Arts Alliance Illinois, a statewide service and advocacy organization that champions arts-supportive policies and funding opportunities to benefit all Illinois residents. Under her leadership, the Alliance recently received a nonprofit innovation award for their work managing the $7 million for Illinois Relief Fund, a public-private partnership between the State of Illinois, City of Chicago, private philanthropy, and grassroots donors supporting the arts community in response to COVID-19. Previously, she was the National Director of Sustain Arts at Harvard University, a project that equipped communities with meaningful data on arts and cultural activity. She has also served as the Director of Education at UMS, a 131 year-old performing arts presenter bringing renowned artists in dance, music, and theater to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There, Ms. Rice was the associate producer on a Grammy Award-winning live concert recording and produced a month-long residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was selected as an author for the arts leadership book 20 Under 40, published in 2010. From 1998-2003, she was a management consultant for Accenture, working with Federal and State government clients in Washington DC. Ms. Rice received her BA from The College of William and Mary, and her MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Tony Scott-Green

Tony Scott-Green is an award-winning composer of music for film, TV and media and has crafted original music for feature films, TV shows, documentaries, web series, marketing & advertising agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Originally from Scotland, he splits his time between Chicago and Los Angeles. He studied at Northwestern University and the Berklee School of Music.

In addition to media composing, his side projects include performing/improvising solo guitar and playing in the Western Swing band ‘The Howdy Neighbors.’

Peter Taub

Peter Taub is a curator and arts manager with over 30 years of experience in developing and producing artist-centered projects. Among his current work is curating performances for Space Force Construction, a multidisciplinary project for the May 2017 Venice Biennale that marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution. He was the founding director of the performing arts program at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from 1996 – 2016, and developed the program into a leading presenter multidisciplinary dance, theater and music. He established the MCA Stage New Works Initiative to support artists in developing new works with creative residencies and commissions, and engaging audiences around the creative process. Some of the larger recent MCA projects he developed were with Eighth Blackbird, Forced Entertainment, Kyle Abraham, Manual Cinema and George Lewis/Catherine Sullivan. Taub cofounded the Chicago Dancemakers Forum (CDF), a consortium-led organization that supports artistic exploration and growth with funding and artistic guidance, and which has grown to be the region’s largest source of support for new dance development. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of CDF. From 1986-95 he led Randolph Street Gallery, an artist-run center focused on the work and ideas of artists, presenting a multi-faceted program of thematic exhibitions, performances, installations, and public art. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Advisory Council

David Lang
Steven Mackey
Allen Otte
Ursula Oppens
Peter Oundjian
Judith Sherman
James Tocco
Joan Tower
Richard Weinert
Timothy Weiss