Annie Burridge is coming up on five years as general director and CEO of the Austin Opera, one of just under 50 arts and culture nonprofits recently chosen by Bloomberg Philanthropies to participate in its $30 million Digital Accelerator Plan. Thanks to a prescient coincidence, Burridge had just put together a panel of tech experts drawn from Silicon Hills—Austin’s nickname—when the pandemic hit, and so was able to tap their expertise from the get-go.

Austin Opera has been on an upward digital trajectory ever since, to the point where its popular Opera ATX outreach series is moving into virtual reality (the first offering in VR is Beethoven: Fidelio). Burridge also talks about the future of the artform as strictly collaborative, exemplified by next season’s (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, a new production that will tour among its five co-commissioners with a single cast.

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