Leadership Staff

Executive Director
Marti Etter
Marti's professional career encompasses over twenty years of experience as a production manager and coordinator for theater, opera, concerts, film, dance and multi-media projects.
These projects have included dramatic, corporate and educational pieces. Many have been used as fundraising vehicles for non-profit organizations. Clients have included The U.S. Navy, Smithsonian Institution, New York Philharmonic, the Dallas, Denver, and National Symphonies, Grollier Publishing, AT&T and Pitney Bowes.
Locally she has served on the Friends Board for St. Lukes Lifeworks, Roxbury School Executive Board, the Connecticut Association of Production Professionals Executive Board, Connecticut Film and Video Commission Advisory Board, the steering committee for the Collaborative Alliance, as board member of the Stamford Public Education Foundation and was on the advisory board for the Fairfield County Community Foundation’s Center for Nonprofit Excellence. She currently serves on the Stamford’s Arts and Culture Commission.

Music Director
Lilia Khanina
A native born of Russia, Lilia earned a Master’s Degree in Conducting from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. During her study at the Conservatory she had an advanced training as a choirmaster with the famous Bolshoi Theater Choir. Ms. Khanina has a large concert experience that includes conducting the Moscow Conservatory Students Choir, the Moscow Conservatory Musical College Choir, and Chamber Choir Renaissance. In 1996 she accepted a position of the Conductor and teacher of theoretical disciplines and piano at the Music Choral School Vesna. Theis school and its choir with which she has performed is notable for receiving numerous awards in international competitions in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary..After relocating to the US in 2003 she joined the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School where she worked as a head accompanist and did choral preparations for the Nutcracker. In 2007 she moved to Connecticut and joined the artistic staff of the Ballet School of Stamford. While working as an accompanist, Ms. Khanina is completinf a PhD in musicology with a research focus of American Opera of the XX century. Her articles and essays were published in Russian and British journals and books.

Administrator
Renee Robinson
Renee has held the position of administrator at The Ballet School of Stamford for the past twenty five years. She has held varied positions in the past in both the corporate and retail industries.
After graduating from Stamford High School, grants and scholarships enabled Renee to attend Berkley Business College in White Plains, NY where she majored in Business Administrations. She currently resides in the Stamford area with her family.