Great Waters honors Outgoing Board Chair Olcott

WOLFEBORO — A reception honoring outgoing board chair of the Great Waters Music Festival Barbara Olcott, was held recently at Quietude in Tuftonboro following the organization’s annual board meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, the board voted unanimously to name Olcott as director emerita.

Olcott has a long history of involvement with the festival, starting in 1996 with a group of local residents, summer residents, and area businesses. During the early years of Great Waters, (an organization dedicated to presenting and creating musical, educational, and artistic events in the Lakes Region) Olcott served as the first vice president of the board.

At the same time, she was charged with the responsibility of heading up a capital campaign to purchase an 800-seat acoustic tent to be located on the campus of Brewster Academy. While raising money for this successful campaign, she also shared her in-depth knowledge of the music industry, helping to find artists to perform and opening her home as a place for them to stay when they came to perform.

After a brief hiatus from the board, Olcott returned to the organization in 2019 just in time to make the decision to go dark for one year due to the pandemic. She used the next 12 months, along with a few board members, to investigate locations for a new acoustic tent, and after much discussion with the Castle in the Clouds in 2020, a new partnership was born.

Olcott currently serves on the board of the Dramatists Guild Foundation in New York City and was honored by that group in 2022 for her work in uplifting and supporting the theater community. She is a past board member of The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, the Hartford Stage Company, the Bald Peak Colony Club, and the Ocean Reef Club. She has been actively involved as a producer and investor of films and shows on and off Broadway.