Carey Kirkpatrick Joins CultureMap as Director of Marketing

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Veteran marketing and public relations specialist Carey Kirkpatrick has joined CultureMap as director of marketing. With nearly a decade of experience in the field, she brings a well-honed set of communications skills to the CultureMap team. Trained in piano, trumpet and French horn, Kirkpatrick transformed a love of performing music into a career in the business of art and culture.

Born in Arlington, Texas in 1978, Kirkpatrick got her start in performance art through her uncle – a dedicated patron of the Austin symphony – and his partner, a pianist for the Austin Symphony. As a child, she frequently attended symphony and ballet performances, and was taken backstage to meet the performers following the show. After dabbling in piano, she was handed a trumpet at the age of 7. In the sixth grade she began her work with the French horn finding motivation in the doubting words of a middle school music teacher. “He told me I wouldn’t be any good at it,” she recalls. “I was motivated to prove him wrong. The next year I achieved first chair at both district and region.”

After high school, Kirkpatrick attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where she participated in the Arts Leadership Program, a create-your-own-curriculum program that lets students explore the nonperformance side of the music industry through business classes and internships. She graduated in May 2000 from Eastman with a BM in performance and a certificate in arts administration. In 2004 she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Master of Music.

Kirkpatrick’s professional career in marketing and PR began in 1999 with a Catherine Filene Shouse fellowship in marketing and public relations with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in Rochester, New York. In March 2001, she relocated to Miami Beach, Florida to serve as public relations manager for the New World Symphony. Following her graduate work, the Houston Symphony recruited her to serve as marketing manager in August 2005. In 2008, she was promoted to director of marketing. While with the Houston Symphony, the American Marketing Association, Houston Chapter recognized Kirkpatrick’s work with a 2008 Crystal Award for the Young Professionals Backstage program and a 2007 honorable mention for her Musician Baseball Cards promotional campaign. Immediately before joining CultureMap, she worked as a graphic designer for Houston’s Alley Theatre.

“We’re working to become a community partner,” she says of CultureMap. “We’re not only covering things that are of interest to people in our community, but we’re providing a voice for the visual and performing arts community in Houston. Marketing CultureMap is about building mutually beneficial relationships and creating a community.”

ABOUT CULTUREMAP

CultureMap (www.culturemap.com) is revolutionizing hyper-local news by delivering real-time coverage, breaking news, analysis and opinion on the arts, fashion, dining, music, events, politics, sports and society. It combines a highly regarded editorial team with a cutting-edge web and mobile publishing platform to offer unique intelligence and insight. CultureMap does not simply report on the communities it covers, it fosters real-time conversation. CultureMap’s newsroom of experienced editors, photographers and writers is complemented by a team of passionate contributors — all of whom bring insider expertise in each market CultureMap serves.