Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and was named the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019.

The author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children's books, and a memoir, Crazy Brave, her many honors include the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, a PEN USA Literary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writers’ Award, a Rasmuson US Artist Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Harjo is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.

www.joyharjo.com

New Mexico's Secretary of the Department of Cultural Affairs, Debra Garcia y Griego has over 20 years of experience in arts administration. Her work experience is in a variety of organizations, including dance, theater, museums and local arts agencies. She previously served as the Executive Director of the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission where she was responsible for implementing the City’s support of arts and cultural affairs such as funding of local nonprofit arts organizations, operation of the Community Gallery, the Art in Public Places program and the City’s international affairs. She led the City’s first cultural planning process, “Culture Connects Santa Fe.” Prior to her appointment as Executive Director, she was the Senior Planner at the Commission, charged with managing both the City’s funding for nonprofit arts organizations and the public art program. Previous work experience includes Museum Campus Chicago (a multi-institutional cross-collaboration and –marketing initiative consisting of the John G. Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum of Natural History and the Chicago Park District), Chicago a cappella, the Southwest Theater and Dance Festival, and the University of New Mexico Department of Theater and Dance.

www.newmexicoculture.org

Andrea Fellows Fineberg has been with Santa Fe Opera for 29 years and Director of Community Engagement since 1993 .She brings a deeply-rooted love and appreciation for the performing arts to her work as administrator, educator, producer, and librettist. As librettist she collaborated with John Kennedy on Trinity and Stephen Paulus on Shoes for the Santo Niño. In 2016, UnShakeable, with Joseph Illick, premiered in Santa Fe, and in the outpouring of activities for the commemoration of the Shakespeare 400, was cited by the New York Times. For Dayton Opera she has written original dialogue for The Magic Flute and The Abduction from the Seraglio. As a collaborative artist, Ms. Fineberg had the privilege of creating and then working with the Academy for the Love of Learning’s Lifesongs¸ writing original, musical narratives with individuals in hospice care, since its inception in 2007. In 2004 she received the City of Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and in 2018 the Max Coll and Catherine Joyce Coll Award for Distinction in Arts Education. For six years she served as a national commissioner to UNESCO and as a member of the Obama Arts Policy Committee in 2008 and 2012.