The Fair Lady Award is an annual special recognition by Fair Lady Production bestowed upon a business woman who has made a difference through their contributions to the arts in our community. Naperville’s 2018 Fair Lady is Shannon Greene Robb, founder and artistic director of ArranmoreArts.
As a graduate from The Chicago Academy for the Arts, Shannon’s aspirations led her to Berklee College of Music in Boston, to pursue a major in Piano Performance. As fate would have it, a year of playing too hard on the keys left her unable to play piano for three years, and it was at that point in her career when she began to play with everything else. After earning a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from DePaul University, Shannon found freedom outside her classical training through Columbia College Chicago‘s Masters program in Interdisciplinary Arts. There, Shannon’s passion for all artistic media flew to new heights as she collaborated with other artists throughout Chicago to create work that defied the traditional constraints and labels of “art” through performance, composition and installation, and in turn inspired her to continually push the boundaries of what is possible.
Shannon’s work has been featured in multi-media installations and performances at Chicago area venues including Woman Made Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery, Links Hall and Ruth Page Center for Dance. She was the first alumna to be named Chair of the Music Department at The Chicago Academy for the Arts and has worked as Musical Director for various theatre companies and schools throughout Chicagoland. Shannon recently created a large scale photo installation in downtown Naperville which is part of the global art project “Inside Out” featured in TedX Naperville. She played piano for Artistic Director, Lara Filip in Lara’s self titled album “Stop Time” released in October of 2016 and was appointed by The City of Naperville as a Commissioner for Special Events Cultural Amenities (SECA), sits on the board of ARTSpeaks and is a member of the Artist-in-Residence Advisory Committee at the DuPage Children’s Museum.
Today, ArranmoreArts is Shannon’s pinnacle: a place where “what if?” is a constant state of mind and art ingenuity is the blood that pulses through every vein of the organization, dedicated to the constant evolution and innovation.
To learn more about Shannon, watch her on Naperville Notables.
