Spartan Profiles: Andrea Van De Kamp

L.A.’S CULTURAL LEADER

            The new Walt Disney Concert Hall has raised Los Angeles’ profile as a cultural center to unprecedented heights. Created by the Music Center of Los Angeles County—landlord for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Center Theatre Group and the Los Angeles Opera—the Frank Gehry building is a spectacular design that visually dominates the city’s landscape. Two Spartans keyed this success—Eli Broad, ’54 (see page ; also see p. 10, Winter 2004), and Andrea L. Van De Kamp, ’66, chairman of West Coast operations for Sotheby’s and chairman emeritus of the Music Center. This Spartan duo, along with former Mayor Richard Riordan, spearheaded the $274 million fundraising effort and pushed the project to completion. “This is the second time Eli and I have teamed up,” says Van De Kamp. “We also teamed up for (Arata) Isozaki’s Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (completed in 1984). We used to joke that we were responsible for an entire block.”

            As Music Center chairman from 1996-2003, Andrea also managed what some thought impossible—a merger of its fundraising and operations arms. “We’ve tried to fix it for 20 years,” notes Andrea. “It was a huge problem. We had two payrolls. I felt we had to have an efficient infrastructure.”

            Andrea also managed to move the REDCAT Theatre—an arts academy equivalent of New York’s Juilliard School—to the new concert hall. “People thrive when they have the arts in their lives,” explains Andrea. “When you evaluate all cultures, what has survived, what has defined culture is art and that is what we are building here.”

            A native of Birmingham, Andrea came to MSU to study teaching, but switched to American history. “I really enjoyed my time at MSU,” she recalls. “There was a history professor I just adored. The education served me very well.”

            After graduation, she worked at Columbia University and then became the first woman hired by Dartmouth College in two centuries. She then moved to Los Angeles in 1974 as associate dean of admissions at Occidental College. In 1987 she became president of the Independent Colleges of Southern California and handled the fundraising for 16 colleges. She joined Sotheby’s in 1989. A devotee of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she rose up the ranks of the Music Center serving as secretary, vice-chair, and eventually chairman from 1996-2003.

            She and her husband, former California State Attorney General John Van de Kamp, live in Pasadena with their daughter Diana, 25. “One of my memories of MSU was that we went to the Rose Bowl in my junior year,” Andrea recalls. “I remember the student paper (State News) came out smelling like roses. I did not get to go. But my first home in California was in Pasadena overlooking the Rose Bowl. I’ve now gone every year for 26 years, so I’ve more than made up for not going in 1966!”