Michelle Marlow has spent most of her life bridging worlds \u2014 from the wide-open ranches of Shiner, Texas, to the refined stages of Fort Worth\u2019s most prestigious music competitions. Now, she\u2019s stepping into perhaps her most high-profile role yet \u2014 chair of the board of the Van Cliburn Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marlow, a children\u2019s author, speech-language pathologist, and community volunteer, has long been connected to the Cliburn. She first encountered the organization in 1995 during a placement with the Junior League of Fort Worth and later spent years volunteering in the competition\u2019s gift shop. Since 2014, she has served on the Cliburn Board of Directors, and in 2022, she became vice chair. Her elevation to board chair marks the continuation of a deep, decades-long relationship with one of Texas\u2019s cultural treasures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marlow succeeds Jeffrey B. King, who led the board from 2017, guiding the organization through two Van Cliburn International Piano Competitions, one Cliburn Amateur Competition, and two Cliburn Junior Competitions. Under King\u2019s leadership, the Cliburn expanded its concert and educational programs, broadening its international reach and setting a high bar for the new chair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marlow grew up on a small ranch in Shiner, where her father was the local veterinarian and her mother a public school speech-language pathologist. Following her mother\u2019s path, she attended TCU and studied speech-language pathology. For the past thirty years, she has worked in private practice, helping children \u2014 from toddlers to high schoolers \u2014 find their voices. Her professional experience also influences her writing: she is the author of seven children\u2019s books in her Series of Hard-to-Pronounce Letters, including “I Can with Van,” inspired by the life of Van Cliburn<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond her career, Marlow is deeply woven into Fort Worth\u2019s civic and cultural life. She has held leadership roles with the Junior League of Fort Worth, Cook Children\u2019s Medical Center, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other organizations. With her husband Scott, a cardiac anesthesiologist, she raises four boys \u2014 a full house in every sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs I step into this role as board chair, I carry with me a lesson my father always shared: \u2018Never forget your roots,\u2019\u201d Marlow said. \u201cIt is by honoring where we come from that we can truly nurture the artistry, community, and legacy that make the Cliburn extraordinary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michelle Marlow has spent most of her life bridging worlds \u2014 from the wide-open ranches of Shiner, Texas,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":257134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,648,12043,7371,7372,9730,975,13813,358,135243,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-257133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-culture","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-fwtx-staff","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-people-of-influence","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-the-cliburn-foundation","18":"tag-top-story","19":"tag-tx","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115272914281852723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}