Page 13 - Delaware 222 - 2025

Sara Ganter
Rehoboth Art League
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Sara Ganter took over as executive
director of the Rehoboth Art League,
Sussex County’s fi rst organized
cultural arts center, back in 2019.
Th rough her tenure, she has helped
the organization survive the COVID
pandemic and return to a robust
calendar of exhibitions, roster of
educational off erings, and a wide
array of arts-driven events, all
of which draw more than 25,000
community members each year. For
more than 80 years, the Rehoboth
Art League has been a beacon for
the arts in Sussex County, and its
Henlopen Acres campus continues
to spotlight upcoming artists while
bringing arts education programs
out to underserved communities. Th e
Rehoboth Art League is also one of the
few organizations in Delaware that
actively acquires art.
Molly Giordano
Delaware Art Museum
ALMA MATERS:
BOARDS:
Q&A:
Patti Grimes
Joshua M. Freeman
Foundation & Carl M.
Freeman Foundation
As the leader of the Joshua M. Freeman
Foundation in Selbyville, Patti Grimes
has helped to create a new live art
mecca for Sussex County through
the Freeman Arts Pavilion, which
has hosted the likes of Cheap Trick,
Steve Miller Band, Darius Rucker,
Sheryl Crow, Patti LaBelle and more
in recent years. More than 750,000
people have attended the pavilion or
the foundations’ arts education and
community access programs since
2008. She also has helped oversee a
capital campaign that is raising millions
to build out the pavilion, bolstering the
local economy. As executive director
of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation,
a private family foundation, Grimes
directs millions of dollars in grants to
more than 1,000 nonprofi ts in Sussex
County and in Maryland.
ALMA MATER:
BOARDS:
Q&A:
Molly Giordano grew up with a
love of the arts, as her mother ran a
community art center in her West
Virginia hometown, so it makes sense
that in 2010 she joined the Delaware
Art Museum, a century-old art
institution in Wilmington. She led the
“Art is Everywhere” campaign, bringing
reproductions of masterworks from
the collection to cities throughout
Delaware, and helped complete the
museum’s strategic plan, rebranding,
and fundraising initiatives. Th rough
COVID, Giordano led the museum as
an interim executive director and the
board rewarded her by naming her the
new permanent director in 2021. Under
her leadership, the museum continues
to thrive with exhibitions like "Jazz
Age Illustration" as well as other
community programs.
ALMA MATERS:
BOARDS:
Q&A:
Kristina Kambalov
First State Ballet Theatre
As a lifelong performing ballerina,
Kristina Kambalov brought her passion
for the art to Delaware in the 1990s
through the Russian Ballet Th eatre of
Delaware. Th at expanded in 1999, when
she opened the Russian Ballet Centre
in Newport with her husband, Pasha,
and later incorporated a nonprofi t
school, First State Ballet Th eatre. In
2003, they moved to Wilmington’s
historic Grand Opera House and fi ve
years later started Delaware’s only
professional ballet company, which
today includes more than 20 dancers
and performs around the state.
After leading FSBT’s dance school as
director for its fi rst 17 years, Kambalov
became executive director of the entire
operation in 2016. Since then, FSBT has
premiered numerous performances by
new and established choreographers
and founded the annual National
Ballet Competition, which draws
dancers ages 9 to 19 to perform before
an esteemed judging panel for a shot
at scholarships to summer ballet
programs nationwide.
Q&A:
DelawareBusinessTimes.com | DELAWARE 222 11
DelawareBusinessTimes.com | DELAWARE 222 11