Bio
antonio c. cuyler, Ph.D. (he/him/his) is Professor of Music in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Faculty Associate in Voice & Opera in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD), and Faculty Associate in the African Studies Center at the University of Michigan.
dr. cuyler’s scholarship interweaves curiosities and inquiries about arts administration, entrepreneurship, leadership, management curricula, creative justice, cultural policy, and experiential learning. The central question that he investigates in his research agenda is, “in what ways can the creative sector ensure and protect the creative justice of historically and continuously low caste, othered, and subaltern peoples?” To this end, he authored Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Cultural Organizations: Insights from the Careers of Executive Opera Managers of Color in the U. S., edited Arts Management, Cultural Policy, & the African Diaspora, and co-edited Accessibility, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Cultural Sector: Initiatives and Lessons Learned from Real Life Cases. He has also authored or co-authored 25 peer reviewed journal articles and 9 book chapters. The League of American Orchestras commissioned him to lead the seminal report, Racial/Ethnic and Gender Diversity in the Orchestra Field in 2023, and the Hewlett Foundation commissioned him to author Arts Leadership in the Bay Area: A Qualitative Study.
Internationally recognized, he has given lectures and presentations of his scholarship around the globe on 6 continents and in more than 30 countries. Most recently, he served as a delegate at the 2024 World Opera Forum in Los Angeles. He has also moderated panels such as Recentering Black Voices in the Arts, #BlackLivesMatter in and Through the Arts, Truth Telling: The Kinship of Critical Race Theory and Hip-Hop, and Opera: Reflecting on the Past, Reaching Toward the Future. In addition he has given interviews about his work, Q & A with Antonio C. Cuyler and the Michigan Minds podcast.
In 2020, he founded Cuyler Consulting, LLC, a Black-owned arts consultancy that partners with cultural organizations to maximize their performance and community relevance through access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI). His clients have included Arts Administrators of Color Network, Charles H. Wright Museum, Dance/USA, Chorus America, the League of American Orchestras, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, OPERA America, and Youth Orchestras of San Antonio, among others. During the 2024-25 season, he will serve as Lyric Opera of Chicago’s inaugural Scholar-in-Residence with Lyric Unlimited. He has served on the boards of the Tallahassee Youth Orchestras, Association of American Cultures, Florida Alliance for Arts Education, Florida Cultural Alliance, Arts Administrators of Color, and currently the American Composers’ Forum and OPERA America.
As a proud 1st Generation college student, dr. cuyler previously held faculty positions at Florida State University (FSU), where he also became the first Black man to earn promotion and tenure in arts administration in the U. S., Colorado State University (CSU), Purchase College, SUNY, American University, and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
