Meet the experience/culture team

Recognized by Musical America magazine as “an energetic music executive on the rise,” Stephen Beaudoin collaborates with performing arts luminaries of today and tomorrow - artists, creatives, nonprofits, businesses, and new initiatives - to foster revolutionary creativity and democratize art. 

“Experience / Culture was founded at the urging of a long-admired performing artist colleague and friend,” Beaudoin says. “This incredibly unique and gifted musician felt they weren’t fully seen, heard, or understood in their work and career. They asked if I’d consider serving as their manager and booker. I said yes without hesitating: it felt right for me in every way. Because transformational art begins with transformational artists, I’m proud to support, coach, and champion performing artists that we need in the world: ones committed to inclusive excellence, on fire for positive social impact, and with clear and unique creative points of view.” 

Beaudoin has over twenty years of leadership experience across the nonprofit, private, and public sectors, touching on many segments and facets of the entertainment and performing arts industry. He has served as chief executive of a multiple Grammy award-winning chorus, a well-regarded regional orchestra, a statewide community music school, and a lively suburban New York City/northern New Jersey performing arts center, and worked as a presenter, producer, director, and performer. 

First working as a professional actor in musical theatre starting at age sixteen with the American Heartland Theatre in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, Beaudoin went on earn a degree in Vocal Performance with Distinction in Performance honors from Boston’s New England Conservatory, then to work as a vocalist, performing artist, and director with companies and ensembles including Pink Martini, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Cappella Romana, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Fear No Music, Opera Boston, Opera Omaha, Portland Cello Project, New Repertory Theatre, Opera Theater Oregon, and many others.

Beaudoin's career - at the intersection of performing arts, education, and social impact - has included roles as a nonprofit CEO, publicly elected school board chair, professional vocalist, consultant, and family foundation board member.

Recognized as one of the music industry’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America magazine and by the Portland Business Journal as a “noted nonprofit leader,” Beaudoin is proud in his career to have presented marquee musicians and acts ranging from Judy Collins, John Oates, Broadway Inspirational Voices, Kenny Barron, Chanticleer, Emily King – to launch the national tour for her new album “Special Occasion” – and Afro-Cuban percussion star Pedrito Martinez, to artists at the vanguard like tap phenom Michela Lerman, musical theatre writers Eli Bolin, Chris Miller, and Nathan Tysen, and soul sensation Liv Warfield. 

With The Washington Chorus, Beaudoin stewarded major artistic projects including the Chorus’ “Mahogany Initiative” led by Artistic Director, Dr. Eugene Rogers, to commission, highlight, and collaborate with leading artists and creators of color; collaborations with the National Symphony Orchestra under conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Andrew Davis, and Teddy Abrams at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the commission and worldwide release of composer Damien Geter’s “Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow” new choral work and accompanying short music film, which picked up recognitions at film festivals across the globe; and setting records in live concert revenues at the Chorus’ Kennedy Center concerts through dynamic pricing models.
 

Other career highlights include stewarding the Maryland Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever recording project, the world premiere of a new commissioned work by composer Chris Brubeck (“Affinity”), in collaboration with Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin at The Music Center at Strathmore, released to global acclaim on an independent label; and growing Portland, Oregon nonprofit PHAME in his seven-year tenure from a grassroots family-based organization to a regional and national model for arts inclusion and lifelong creative learning. 

Additional leadership service of note includes as a publicly elected school member in Portland, Oregon, where Beaudoin served as Vice Chair and then Chair of the Board for Multnomah Education Service District, an $80 million public education agency serving more than 100,000 students in Multnomah County, Oregon. He has served on the boards of TEDxPortland, the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, and Oregon Humanities, where he was appointed by Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, and on the Executive Council of the national Composer Diversity Project, which works to increase representation of historically oppressed and under-represented peoples in Classical music.
 

In addition to his degree with distinction from Boston’s New England Conservatory, he holds an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where he was named to the Poets & Quants publication’s “Best and Brightest Executive MBAs of 2022” list. He is an alum of the National Arts Strategies (NAS) Chief Executive Program, where he studied arts leadership issues and trends alongside other global arts executives at Harvard Business School.
 

Beaudoin has been featured in news stories and interviews in the Washington Post, International Arts Manager, Delaware Public Media, The Nonprofit Podcast, Arts Engines with Aaron Dworkin, and the Washington Blade. He has written on nonprofits, the music industry, and social impact matters for the Portland Business Journal, Street Roots newspaper, the National Endowment for the Arts blog, and the Oregonian.