The Los Angeles Master Chorale announces the appointment of two new members to its board of directors: Jennifer Flinton Diener and Shawn Kravich.

 

The board, chaired by Philip A. Swan, provides leadership in carrying out the Master Chorale’s mission to share the spectrum of choral music with the widest possible audience. “We are excited to welcome Jennifer Flinton Diener and Shawn Kravich to the Master Chorale’s dedicated board of directors,” said Swan. “Their knowledge and expertise, combined with their passion for the arts, will help us to continue to adapt to the challenges of the pandemic period and to realize the Master Chorale’s vision as we look towards the future.” 

 

“Ms. Diener’s extensive philanthropic experience and Mr. Kravich’s life-long work in the areas of racial justice and youth development will be invaluable to the organization,” said Jean Davidson, President & CEO. “As we continue to build our fundraising program and engage more young people from diverse backgrounds, their areas of expertise will be extremely valuable.”

 

Jennifer Flinton Diener was born and raised in Massachusetts and upstate New York, coming to Los Angeles in 1972 upon finishing graduate school in business administration. She resided in Santa Monica for forty years with her late husband, Royce. She loves music, dogs, yoga, travel, food and wine, art and photography, and her friends. Jennifer had a career as a senior executive in the hospital and healthcare industry, serving as senior vice president of marketing and communications for American Medical International for several years. 

 

Subsequent to her business career, she has been active on the boards of several cultural and educational organizations. She served on the final board of trustees of Radcliffe College (her alma mater) until the college was sold to Harvard University in 2000 and became the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She was an advisor to the institute, whose first dean, Drew Gilpin Faust, is a past president of Harvard University. Jennifer has served as the president of the California Heritage Museum in Santa Monica and of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She has also been active on the board of the Colburn School (where she chaired the development committee, co-founded the Dance Council,and serves on the Colburn Society Advisory Council). She was a founding board member of the Center Dance Arts of the Music Center. 

 

She is currently on the boards of the Blue Ribbon of the Music Center and The Broad Stage at Santa Monica College, where she is vice chair of the development committee.  She is an emeritus board member of the Pine Cobble School in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and sits on the advisory board of Santa Monica–UCLA Orthopaedic Hospital. Other prior board positions include the Jules Stein Eye Institute Affiliates, LACMA Costume Council, American Red Cross, Los Angeles Region and Claremont Graduate University. 

 

In addition to her board responsibilities, Jennifer has chaired over 45 major fundraising events in the last 30 years, including co-chairing the international debut of Walt Disney Concert Hall when it opened in 2003, the 75th anniversaries of the Hollywood Bowl and the American Red Cross, Los Angeles Region, openings of the LA Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Patron Tour of Salzburg for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the opening gala for The Broad Stage, among others. Ms. Diener holds a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University, where she also received her bachelor’s degree in English literature.

 

Shawn Kravich (he/him) works as the founding executive director of the Snap Foundation, the mission of which is to develop pathways to the creative economy for underrepresented youth in Los Angeles. In this role, Shawn has developed several innovative programs designed to empower youth who are Black, brown, and indigenous, and of color to play a more directive role in philanthropic and nonprofit decision-making. Prior to joining the Snap Foundation, Shawn served as executive director of the John N. Calley Foundation, an organization funded by the late head of Sony Pictures and focused on creating opportunities for unrecognized, talented youth in Los Angeles.

 

Shawn has deep connections to our city and the nonprofit sector at large. As a Los Angeles native, Shawn attended University of Southern California for his undergraduate degree and then University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law with concentrations in Critical Race Studies and Public Interest Law and Policy. Through fellowships with The Williams Institute at UCLA and The Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, he contributed several pieces of legal scholarship on sexual orientation and gender identity specifically focused on marriage equality and LGBT+ workplace discrimination. 

 

During his decade of law practice, Shawn ran a national legal organization focused on patients and families affected by cancer and served as the founding executive director of the Los Angeles HIV Law and Policy Project, a collaborative legal services entity focused on the medical and legal rights of people living with HIV/AIDS throughout Los Angeles County. Prior to entering philanthropy, Shawn served as the vice president of external affairs and development at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, and he has extensive experience in fundraising strategy and event coordination. In his current volunteer and employment roles, Shawn’s main focus areas include systems-level thinking and creative problem solving, particularly through strategic collaborations between public and private sectors, community engagement, and person-centered psychosocial models of care delivered through trauma-informed and anti-racist lenses. He has attended at least 50 Los Angeles Master Chorale performances, the first of which was the inaugural Messiah performance at Disney Hall nearly 20 years ago.