Nina Olson: Director of Development/Publicity/Community Outreach Harbor Conservatory and Raices

Latin Beat Magazine, August, 2004 by Rebecca Burkeen

QUICK FACTS:

* Future projects: another Salsa Sunday--an all day festival as part of the Grammy month events, and gaining more exposure and financial assistance for Raices and the Harbor Conservatory.

* Other hobbies: working with plants and flowers

* Contact information: nolson@boysbarbor.org

Nina Olson was born and raised in New York in a home that embraced diversity and encouraged a love for and study of the arts. She studied at SUNY in Purchase and has long been known for her artistic talent as a collage artist. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries and museums, in the New York Times and Victoria Magazine and most recently at Taller Boricua/The Puerto Rican Workshop. Her art has earned her awards for its detail and expression and although doing an article on her success as an artist would be substantial enough, it is her work in and for the Latin community that brought her to our attention.

Olson has been an arts administrator in the non-profit arts sector for over twenty years and since 1991 has worked to promote and develop support for the Harbor Conservatory's Latin music program and its 17,000-piece Raices Latin Music Collection, the nucleus for the nation's first Latin music museum. Olson is not of Hispanic heritage, nor does she speak Spanish, and yet this Jewish woman of Eastern European descent has devoted her life's work to promoting and preserving the Latino arts, while allowing her personal art career to play second fiddle. The Harbor Conservatory is not only her workplace, but her second home. Working alongside musicians like Jose Madera, Jr., Sonny Bravo, George Delgado, Ray Vega, Jimmy Delgado, Louis Bauzo and Ramon Rodríguez, she's had the unique opportunity to work on such exciting projects as the "Grammy's 50th Anniversary Tribute Honoring Tito Puente," "Oh, So Many Stars ... a Tribute to the Sidemen of the Palladium Era," "The Park Palace Remembered" and "Tribute to AI Santiago and the Allegro All-Stars."

Olson has done it all to promote Latin music, from writing grants and developing public programs such as SALSA SUNDAY and "Mambo in the Catskills: The Jewish/Latino Connection," to handing out flyers at street festivals and testifying in front of elected officials. She has taken her message to the media with appearances on NBC's Visiones, ABC's Tiempo, WBAI radio and in the New York Times.

As Olson explains, "Latin music appeals to all kinds of people, all over the world." She is working hard to document and preserve Latin music so that it takes its rightful place in the respected canon of America's musical heritage, just as other types of North American music have. With the Raices collection growing and becoming an integral part of the history of Latin music in America, Olson reminds all of us to donate those items we may otherwise consider throwing away. Old records and photos are just a couple of examples of the documentation the exhibit needs to keep growing.

As with all of the women featured in this monthly column, Olson has experienced the challenges of being a woman working in the realm of Latin music. A perfect example of these challenges is when she attempted to develop a public program highlighting women in the Latin music industry and was discouraged, because, as she was told, there were other stories worthier of coverage. With this typical response towards women in the industry, Olson admits that the female students at Harbor Conservatory are encouraged to strive harder than anybody else in order to make it in the business. Unfortunately, women still have a ways to go to crack the glass ceiling in the music industry.

In addition to her work for the arts, another family value she learned early on, and one she continues to work for, is social justice. Her first job was with the not-for-profit cultural resource organization Bread and Roses, who believe that you don't just need the bread, but you also need the roses; the roses meaning diversity. The city of New York is a more culturally and artistically rich place because of the rose they have in Nina Olson.