UCCS hires first Ent Center for the Arts director

Aisha Ahmad-Post, who produced The New York Public Library’s flagship cultural series, is the new director of the new $70 million UCCS Ent Center for the Arts.

Ahmad-Post was selected following a national search and will be responsible for programming the Ent Center for the Arts’ performing arts series and representing the 92,000 square-foot arts complex to the community. The Ent Center for the Arts opens in January 2018.

Drew Martorella, executive director, UCCS Presents, announced Ahmad-Post’s appointment.

“Aisha Ahmad-Post has demonstrated a solid track record of working with some of the biggest cultural organizations and artists in our country,” Martorella said. “With her specialty in live performances that span music, dance, and theatre, I am very pleased to have her join UCCS and the UCCS Presents team that is committed to bringing and creating the highest quality arts experiences for the UCCS campus and the Pikes Peak region.”

The Ent Center for the Arts will be the new home for the university’s existing professional arts organizations, Theatreworks and the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art, as well as the Department of Visual and Performing Arts’ Music Program and Theatre and Dance Program. The Ent Center will contain four performing arts venues, a visual arts gallery, rehearsal studios, classrooms, practice rooms, and a café.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to create a new performing arts series in a gorgeous, state-of-the-art facility,” Ahmad-Post said. “The Ent Center for the Arts is a major achievement for both UCCS and Colorado, and I am very excited to work with my colleagues at the university and throughout the region to ensure that it is a premier resource and destination for the arts in southern Colorado and beyond.”

While there are multiple performing arts venues in the Ent Center for the Arts, Ahmad-Post will focus on programming the 780-seat Shockley-Zalabak Theater and the Chapman Foundations Recital Hall. The first series of performances in the Ent Center for the Arts will begin in February 2018.

Prior to her work as a producer at The New York Public Library, Ahmad-Post worked for the Aspen Music Festival and School and Columbia Artists Management. She worked with artists including classical pianist Lang Lang, the late composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A trained classical pianist and double bassist, she taught music theory as an associate instructor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music.

— Michelle Winchell, Theatreworks