COPPeR director lured away by music festival
After three years as one of the most influential forces in the region’s arts scene, Bettina Swigger announced Monday that she will leave her job as executive director of the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region (COPPeR).
“It was kind of a perfect storm of opportunity,” said Swigger, who will become executive director of Festival Mozaic, a year-round classical music festival in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “It’s going to be hard to leave. This has been my home for a long time, since 1998.”
A founding board member in 2006, Swigger went on, as director, to build a centralized location to foster arts and connect “residents and visitors with arts and culture to enrich the Pikes Peak region.” She spearheaded the creation of Peak Radar, an arts directory called the COPPeR Pages, and, perhaps more importantly, the region’s first cultural plan.
“She was such the right person to be the first executive director,” said Susan Edmondson, a founding board member and executive director of the Bee Vradenburg Foundation, which provides grants to local arts nonprofits. “I could never have imagined three years ago, when she started the job, that COPPeR would be where it is today.
“We have a very strong, committed board. We’re financially secure. And we just finished a five-year strategic plan.”
Swigger wasn’t looking for a job when the California festival approached her. But her longtime friendship with festival music director Scott Yoo proved a compelling reason to apply. A frequent participant in Colorado College’s summer music festival, he met Swigger in 2000, not long before she became the festival’s director. She calls Yoo one of the “front-running conductors” in the world.
“But the idea to go back to music, to music-making at the most excellent level, that was a draw. I missed that,” said Swigger, who in her new role will work closely with Yoo in planning.
Edmondson said Swigger will be missed in the Pikes Peak region.
“She never made it all about her,” Edmondson said. “She was a great leader but it never was the Bettina show. It was all about the mission.”
The organization plans to find a replacement for Swigger before her last day Jan. 14. The search is local, Swigger said, because COPPeR considers connections to the community to be paramount. Applications are due Dec. 3.
