Her career at the UNLV Performing Arts Center spans more than 30 years.

An advocate for the power of arts education, Lori Cobo, executive director of the UNLV Performing Arts Center, joins us this week for Nevada Week In Person.

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(Amber Renee Dixon) The UNLV Performing Arts Center is set to raise the curtain on its 46th season on September 9.

That's when flamenco composer and guitar virtuoso Antonio Rey will make his debut at the venue.

Lori Cobo, classically trained in piano starting at seven years old, is here to talk about the upcoming season as well as what led her to getting what she calls her dream job as executive director of the UNLV Performing Arts Center.

Lori, thank you so much for joining us for Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks, Amber.

-Not only do you put on world-class performances for the Las Vegas community, you are adamant that Southern Nevada, particularly students in Southern Nevada, get some sort of education out of it.

First off, why?

(Lori Cobo) Well, I think education in the arts is so vital.

I think that it's one of those programs when you look at the challenges that the school districts have, they are often the first things, one of the first things, that and athletics are the first two things that come to mind that are quick cuts for the school districts.

And it's such a sad statement because those are the opportunities that our young people look for, and they're so vital to those kids' stability.

They need those.

The creativity and the exercise, and even exercise in art is important.

So those things are important, and they open the doors to so many things, so many possibilities, so that's an important thing for us.

-Our show for Nevada Week this week had a segment on mental healthcare for children, and one of the therapists utilizes drawing as a form of self-expression for children to understand what they're going through.

That's one form of why the arts are so important and the creative process as well.

Why do you think that is important for children?

-It's important because it gives the kids an outlet to express themselves, and it allows them to open the door to that creativity and to dream the possibilities of so many things.

You know, when you give kids the opportunity to see the possibilities of what art could bring to their lives, it's amazing.

Whether it be in vocal performance or theater or you put an instrument in their hands, the world opens to so many possibilities for them.

-Providing a lot of hope, perhaps.

-Yes.

-How do you go about using your performances at the performing arts center to educate students?

-When we bring our artists in, most of our artists, I ask-- well, I ask all of them to do outreach opportunities.

So when we had just this past season, the Romeros Quartet was our closing performance this year, and Pepe Romero himself, one of the guitar greats, actually did a master class the following afternoon.

So that master class was open to the community.

It was UNLV students that actually performed for Pepe, but it was open to Clark County School District students and the general UNLV or the general Vegas community could come and watch the instruction being given.

So it was a rewarding experience not only for the students to hear the instruction being given by Mr. Romero himself but it was also the community could hear it, and it's interesting to see that it plays both directions, right?

-Mutual benefit, I imagine.

-Absolutely.

One of the most interesting stories from that perspective, back in September of 2017 we had Taylor Davis, she's a violinist.

She came and we actually took Taylor out to Pinecrest Academy and she was performing for the third grade class, all the third graders.

Her mom was accompanying her at the time, and she'd pulled me aside and she'd told me she was concerned because Taylor was used to performing, doing her master class opportunities with high school students or older and that Taylor and her husband had made the decision at the time not to have children, and she wasn't used to working with younger kids.

And it had such an impact on Taylor to be around those young students that a couple of years later when I reached out to Taylor-- because I like to stay in touch with our artists as well after we create that relationship-- a couple years later when I reached out to Taylor, she and her husband actually had a son.

So it's nice to see that we-- you know, I obviously don't want to take the credit for that, but it's nice to see that impact with being around those students and watching the joy that she experienced being around them... -Opened her eyes to that opportunity.

-Exactly.

-A little bit similar, you have your own kind of love story from the performing arts center.

You married a classical guitarist that you met there.

How did that come to be?

-So the performing arts center has a-- well, it started originally as the Classical Guitar Series.

Back in 2005 the Classical Guitar Series was created, and the classical guitar teacher at the university, Ricardo Cobo, went and met with the then-dean Jeffrey Koep and one of our major donors who still is today, Dr. Mitchell and Pearl Forman, to discuss the possibility of creating a guitar series at UNLV.

Since that time Ricardo and I have worked together for the past two-- well, now it's going on 22 years.

I was enamored by him both physically and his playing, and then in August of 2019, we ended up getting married.

-Well, who made the first move?

How did that happen?

How long ago if you've known him 22 years?

-Well, at the time we both were not available.

We were both married so it just-- it progressed.

We ended-- well, obviously we both ended up getting divorced, and it was a mutual thing and it just kind of took hold.

-As things happen like that, they sure do.

So during the pandemic is when you got married.

Also during the pandemic is when you got your master's degree, and you got your bachelor's degree while you were working at UNLV and a mother of two kids.

I think that's incredible.

What would you tell people out there who are thinking gosh, I could, maybe considering it, but think they can't do it?

-Oh, I think anything is possible.

I think education is extremely important.

I am a proverbial learner.

I have often thought that even now I'm like, I think about the possibility of going back and looking at getting my MBA but at the same time, I'm like why am I going to do that to myself?

But I think education is so important, and both of my kids are now obviously both very grown, and my daughter has gotten both her BA and her master's, and she actually is in education and teaches here in the valley.

My son has his bachelor's in computer science.

So education, I made sure that was a value that was instilled in both of them.

-And you lived it; you set the example.

-Exactly, and it's very important and I think education is just such-- it's so paramount to everything that we create in society, and I think sitting in an institution of higher education, I think it's just the right thing and education is just really important.

-You got your start at the UNLV Performing Arts Center as an usher when you were in high school at Bonanza High School.

Did that open your mind to the business aspect of performing arts, because that's what you are in, the business side, and what is it like being on the business side of art?

They seem to contradict each other.

-Actually, I enjoy the business side of arts.

Part of the reason why I didn't end up on the stage was because I was fearful.

The stage fright of performing always took the better end of me, so I'm happy to be able to be on the other side and be able to still be part of arts and be able to give art back to the community.

So by sitting on the other side and being able to be a presenter and bring world-class artists in and give it back to the community, I'm still able to be part of the art.

So that's something I really value.

It's really important to me.

-When I look through this upcoming schedule, one performance that stood out to me was Cirque Mechanics Zephyr: A Whirlwind of Circus, and that is: A tale about our choices for our planet and its resources.

The unrelenting tug-of-war between man and nature in the name of progress.

We cover a lot of environmental issues here at Vegas PBS.

That stood out to me, and that will particularly have an educational aspect for local children, right?

-Yes.

We're really happy to be teaming up again with Chris and Aida Lashua with Cirque Mechanics.

They are a community-based entity here in Southern Nevada.

We had them as part of our season a couple of years ago when they presented 42FT.

They will do community outreach with us in partnership not only for the school district, which we are doing a free performance for the school district on the Friday before our public performance, but they are also going to be doing master class opportunities for the college.

So we'll be doing workshops with the entertainment and engineering design program.

We'll be doing stuff with the department of dance.

We'll be doing stuff with the theater department.

So there are going to be interdisciplinary programs going between our colleges and also then the big performance with the school district.

So it's a really exciting opportunity, and we're really grateful to Chris and Aida for bringing this back into our community and keeping it here on our home turf and letting us work with them again.

-Not many cities can say they have the opportunity to work with Cirque.

I think that's very special.

-Yes.

-What would you be telling people-- you talked to me off camera about wow, it's so nice to have activity back in the performing arts center after it was closed during COVID.

What would you tell people to get them to come back out?

Do you need them to come back out, to remember what it's like?

-Yes.

I mean, there's nothing like a live performance.

I mean, you know, it was one thing-- and we even created "Live from the UNLV PAC" during the shutdown, giving the college of fine arts students an opportunity to livestream performances during the shutdown because we couldn't have people in our venues, right?

But now that our venues are open and filled with sounds again, which is so amazing, please come back.

We are ready for you.

We can't wait to see you.

It's amazing to have sounds in our venues again.

We just got done hosting an entire month of the Clark County School District festivals with band, orchestra and choir, and seeing the kids performing on stage and hearing their voices and their instruments and the excitement when they take the stage was amazing.

-Lori Cobo, thank you so much for your time and joining us on Nevada Week In Person.

To see this week's edition of Nevada Week, tune in on Sunday night at 5:30, Tuesday night at 7:30 or anytime you wish at vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

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