Emil J. Kang will present the keynote address at the Bienen School of Music's convocation ceremony on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at noon in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.

Kang has spent three decades building, funding, and reimagining arts institutions across the United States. He maintains an active consulting practice advising arts leaders and organizations on strategy, governance, and institutional transformation.

Most recently, Kang served as program director for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation—the nation’s largest arts funder—where he led a $120 million annual portfolio and conceived Creatives Rebuild New York, the largest guaranteed income program for artists in U.S. history. Before Mellon, he founded Carolina Performing Arts at UNC-Chapel Hill, building it into one of the country’s premier university-based performing arts programs while commissioning more than 60 new works from internationally renowned artists. He also served as professor of the practice in the Department of Music and special assistant to the Chancellor for the Arts.

A violinist from an early age, Kang’s career began in the orchestra world. He was selected for the League of American Orchestras management fellowship, with assignments at the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Grand Rapids Symphony. He then served as orchestra manager of the Seattle Symphony. At 31, he became the youngest person to lead a major American orchestra when he was appointed president and executive director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra—also the first Asian American to hold such a position. During his tenure, he led the planning, construction, and opening of the $60 million Max M. Fisher Music Center, a landmark in midtown Detroit’s revitalization. He commissioned works from Wayne Shorter, Yusef Lateef, and George Walker, and brought Itzhak Perlman on as principal guest conductor. Under his leadership, the DSO received the ASCAP John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music. He also established the nation’s first youth jazz orchestra under the umbrella of a symphony orchestra and created the DSO’s Jazz Directorship, a position first held by Marcus Belgrave.

Kang currently serves on the National Council on the Arts, first appointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama. He serves as entrepreneur-in-residence at the Yale Ventures Cultural Innovation Lab at Yale University. In 2025, he served as the Agnes Gund Visiting Professor of the Practice of Arts at Brown University.

He serves on boards including Silkroad, National Sawdust, and Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, and is vice chair of the New York City Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. He writes about the future of arts institutions, leadership, and philanthropic practice on his Substack, The Reprise. Kang received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Rochester.