{"id":30893,"date":"2016-06-27T14:47:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T20:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=30893"},"modified":"2016-07-05T00:21:31","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T06:21:31","slug":"cultural-icon-sharon-litwin-dies-in-chicago-at-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/cultural-icon-sharon-litwin-dies-in-chicago-at-75\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural icon Sharon Litwin dies in Chicago at 75"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By DOMINIC MASSA, Courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/wwltv.com\">WWL-TV.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>SHARON LITWIN, a longtime local cultural advocate, journalist and civic booster whose leadership roles included serving the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), died Friday. She was 75.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30996\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SharonLitwinWWNO.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30996\" class=\"wp-image-30996 size-thumbnail lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SharonLitwinWWNO-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"SharonLitwinWWNO\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 150px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 150\/150;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30996\" class=\"wp-image-30996 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/SharonLitwinWWNO-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"SharonLitwinWWNO\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-30996\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharon Litwin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nola.com\/arts\/index.ssf\/2016\/06\/sharon_litwin_obituary.html\">Her death was first reported by John Pope at NOLA.com\/The Times-Picayune<\/a>, which reported that Litwin died of complications from pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n<p>A native of Blackpool, England, Litwin came to New Orleans in 1966. Longtime friends said she did more to enhance and promote local culture and the arts than many natives ever could, however.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t think of someone who added so much to the cultural scene in so many ways,\u201d said WYES-TV senior producer and host Peggy Scott Laborde. The two worked at WYES-TV\u00a0in the 1970s when Litwin was a producer at the public TV station.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom her involvement with the Arts Council of New Orleans and the New Orleans Museum of Art, to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and then the Crescent City Farmers Market, she had boundless energy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Former WWL-TV anchor Angela Hill agreed that the list of local institutions which benefitted from Litwin&#8217;s leadership is almost too long to recite.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sharon was one of the most creative thinkers in New Orleans. Devoted to the arts, she led the way for today&#8217;s exuberant arts community whether it be in music, fine arts or the written word. How lucky we were to have her leadership,&#8221; Hill said.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, Litwin had co-founded <a href=\"http:\/\/nolavie.com\/\">NolaVie<\/a>, a non-profit website chronicling local arts and culture. She also produced features for WWNO-FM.<\/p>\n<p>At WYES-TV, she produced several documentaries, such as &#8220;Free Men of Color&#8221; and &#8220;Gospel,&#8221; as well as a series, &#8220;Opportunity: A Program for Women,&#8221; for women re-entering the job market.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in her career, she was also a reporter covering a wide range of topics for <em>The States-Item\u00a0<\/em>and <em>The Times-Picayune<\/em>. She also worked as assistant director of the New Orleans Museum of Art and executive director and senior vice president for external affairs of the LPO.<\/p>\n<p>She retired from the LPO in 2011. Friends and colleagues credit her with setting and reaching tremendous fundraising goals for both cultural institutions. At NOMA alone, she was responsible for raising more than $26 million to build out three new wings and upgrade the original historic building in City Park.<\/p>\n<p>Litwin also served a variety of cultural and civic groups as a volunteer and board member. In recognition of her leadership over the years, she received the Mayor&#8217;s Arts Award and was named a role model by the YWCA and the Young Leadership Council.<\/p>\n<p>She is survived by her two daughters Anna-Marie Jene of San Francisco and Dr. Rebecca Litwin Newman of Glenview, IL.; her sister Carol Streat of London, England and two grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0memorial service in New Orleans is being planned for some time in August.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Editor&#8217;s note: We acknowledge the efforts of both Dominic Massa of WWL-TV and <a href=\"mailto:John_Pope@nola.com\">John Pope of Nola.com<\/a> in reporting on this passing, which occurred out of town and without notification from a local funeral home.)<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Cultural%20icon%20Sharon%20Litwin%20dies%20in%20Chicago%20at%2075\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[7920,7924,7922,8788,7921,7923,118,2364],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30893"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30999,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30893\/revisions\/30999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}