FWSO news

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra CEO Keith Cerny to leave after 8 years

Jennifer Cerny, Keith Cerny, Robert Spano, and Louella Baker Martin at the FWSO 2025 Opening Night Celebration.

Photo by Karen Almond

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is losing its president and CEO, Keith Cerny, who will leave in January 2027 for another chief executive role at an arts organization outside Texas, according to a release.

Cerny, who has led the orchestra for eight years, will depart after a tenure that included the hiring of Music Director Robert Spano, navigating the COVID-19 pandemic without cutting musicians’ and staff members’ pay or benefits, and a major push to expand the orchestra’s board and donor base, the release notes.

The orchestra announced his departure October 23. It did not identify his next employer. He did not hint at his departure at the Opening Night Celebration, attended by musicians, board, staff, and patrons, on September 11.

Cerny joined the FWSO in January 2019 after serving as CEO of Calgary Opera in Canada for about eight months. Before that, he led The Dallas Opera from 2010 to 2017, where he commissioned world premieres, introduced public simulcasts, and established the Hart Institute for Women Conductors.

Fort Worth’s search for a new leader began after former President and CEO Amy Adkins resigned in July 2017. Cerny was selected following an international search announced in August 2018.

During his time in Fort Worth, Cerny worked with board chair Mercedes T. Bass to recruit Spano, a four-time Grammy Award winner, after the departure of beloved longtime music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya; and British conductor Dame Jane Glover, who became principal guest conductor, the release notes.

British conductor Dame Jane Glover became principal guest conductor under Cerny's tenure. Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

The orchestra also credits Cerny with strengthening its finances and broadening its programming. During the pandemic, the FWSO delivered a $330,000 surplus over three years while continuing to perform live concerts and maintaining full pay and benefits for musicians and staff.

Also to his credit: Since the 2024-25 season, Cerny has led a recruitment drive that added 50 supporters to the board, which now has 83 members. Board giving, excluding Bass, has more than quadrupled since the initiative began, according to the orchestra.

"When I first hired Keith, I tasked him with 'putting the FWSO on the map,' and I believe that he and I have been very successful in meeting that goal,” Bass said in a statement. She credited Cerny with elevating the orchestra’s national and international profile and building a strong administrative leadership team.

Cerny says in the release that he valued the opportunity to expand the orchestra’s artistic reach through partnerships with other cultural organizations.

FWSO Opening Night 2026 Aristo Sham performs with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and maestro Robert Spano on Opening Night 2026. Photo by Jill Johnson

Among the artistic initiatives and accomplishments highlighted by the FWSO during Cerny’s tenure:

Expanding artistic collaborations: Partnerships with the Kimbell Art Museum, Sid Richardson Museum, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Bruce Wood Dance Dallas, and Dallas Theater Center.
Launching “Theater of a Concert:” A series incorporating elements such as dance, projections, actors, and singers into symphonic performances.
Reshaping the Pops lineup: Increasing the number of concerts that generate a financial margin while restructuring or eliminating money-losing programming.

Cerny also cited several personal highlights, including productions of three Stravinsky ballets with three different dance companies over three seasons, the world premiere of the suite from Joby Talbot’s ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a Shakespeare program with Dallas Theater Center, and a three-year partnership with the Kimbell.

“It has been an enormous privilege to lead the FWSO for eight years, and I wish the institution continued success,” Cerny said in a statement.

The orchestra has established a search committee and will immediately begin looking for his successor. Bass said the organization plans to seek a candidate with substantial CEO experience to work with its administrative team and Spano.

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Daredevil women

Fort Worth's Cowgirl Museum spotlights gravity-defying trick riders

Photo courtesy of National Cowgirl Museum

Faye Blesing at 1949 Santa Rosa Round-Up, Vernon, Texas, executing a Hippodrome Stand.

Daredevil women were defying gravity in the rodeo arena long before anyone did it in the Land of Oz. The National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame in Fort Worth will showcase some of rodeo’s most intrepid women in a new photography exhibition opening as part of its expanded museum on November 7.

“Gravity Defied: Trick Riders of the Cowgirl” will feature archival photographs of Cowgirl Hall of Fame honorees who helped shape trick and fancy riding, an extreme sport that demands strength, balance, and a willingness to take serious risks on horseback.

The exhibition is the second announced for the museum’s reopening, following “Miranda Lambert: Velvet Rodeo,” a display of costumes from the country star’s Las Vegas residency. Both exhibitions will debut when the museum opens its new 16,000-square-foot expansion.

Trick and fancy riding gained popularity in the United States through Wild West shows, where women became key figures in developing the sport, a release notes. They refined existing techniques, invented new tricks, and helped introduce audiences to the high-flying discipline long before “extreme sports” became a familiar term.

Faye Blackstone executing one of her three invented tricks, the Flyaway, in the 1940s or '50s.Photo courtesy of National Cowgirl Museum

The new exhibition draws from the museum’s archives to spotlight the athleticism and ingenuity of the women behind the performances, including rodeo stars who rose to fame during the sport’s competitive heyday and those who kept the tradition alive in later decades, the release says.

Among the photographs is a 1949 image of Cowgirl Hall of Fame honoree Faye Blesing performing a Hippodrome Stand at the Santa Rosa Round-Up in Vernon, Texas.

Another shows Faye Blackstone executing the Flyaway, one of three tricks she invented. Rodeo legend Tad Lucas appears in a 1948 photograph taken at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, performing a trick dubbed the "suicide drag."

Tad Lucas, executing the "suicide drag" at the FWSSR in 1948.Photo courtesy of James Cathey

Diana Vela, the museum’s associate executive director of exhibits and education, curated the exhibition using photographs and oral histories from the museum’s collection.

“I am in awe of these women, all Honorees, whose athleticism often goes unnoticed,” Vela says in the release. “The risk is clear, the difficulty is clear, and yet you can feel the sheer joy emanating from these photographs in their broad smiles and wind-whipped hair.”

Vela says the photographs capture only a moment of performances that took years of practice, creativity, and courage to master. At the heart of the new exhibition are the women themselves, she says.

“I think most revealing was reading their oral histories held in our archives when they talk about learning to trick ride or inventing tricks,” Vela says. “The one moment captured on film belies a multitude of stories behind it.”

The Cowgirl Museum closed to the public October 19 to prepare for the reopening of its $19 million expansion. The 16,000-square-foot addition includes a new entrance facing Dickies Arena, additional galleries, an event space accommodating up to 250 people, and the new Cowgirl Carousel.

The expansion will create more space to explore the accomplishments and influence of women of the West through exhibitions and other visitor experiences, the museum says.

The museum will reopen November 7, with a members-only preview at 10 am and public admission beginning at 12 noon.

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