The University of Maine Museum of Art has hired George Kinghorn as its new director.

Kinghorn, who most recently served as deputy director and chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville in Florida, begins his new post June 9.

“The museum in downtown Bangor is a beautifully designed, intimate space. I’m very excited about the opportunity there,” Kinghorn said by phone from Florida. “I am interested in this position largely because of my background is education. I taught visual arts at the university level, and the opportunity to once again be associated with a university and a campus and able to interact with students is particularly appealing.”

Kinghorn, 40, said he was looking forward to living in a northern climate. Although he was born in Florida, he has lived in Michigan and in Minnesota.

“I’m an outdoorsy type person. The personal opportunity of being able to go out in nature and do a little kayaking and canoeing is going to be a nice change from the Florida environment, where it is so ridiculously hot,” he said.

Kinghorn was instrumental in opening MOCA Jacksonville’s six-floor, 60,000-square-foot facility. He also led a subsequent renovation of the museum’s galleries.

During his nine-year tenure, MOCA Jacksonville opened a children’s interactive center, ArtExplorium Loft, and Café Nola, an upscale bistro. In addition, he added significant works to the permanent collection, implemented a comprehensive strategic plan and created a collections management master plan, which redefined the scope of the collection.

Laurie Hicks, the interim director of the University of Maine Museum of Art and an art professor at UMaine, praised Kinghorn’s experience, enthusiasm and vision.

“The museum is a vital, alive place,” Hicks said in a statement. “What George can bring to it is the ability to make that vitality and possibility a reality. He has a great track record of having a vision and making it happen, and that was important to us.”

Kinghorn said his vision for the museum includes community outreach and collaborations with faculty and students, and he hopes to increase the museum’s visibility statewide.

He believes the museum can play a larger role in Bangor’s evolution as a cultural destination, and that with his expertise in contemporary art, the museum can become a central gathering spot for Maine’s contemporary art scene.

Kinghorn’s arrival in Maine coincides with the fifth anniversary of the museum’s move to downtown Bangor.

While the Bangor museum is much smaller than MOCA Jacksonville, its size lends itself to an intimate experience for visitors. “It has great flexibility. We can do three to four very different types of exhibitions simultaneously to really provide things that appeal to the tastes of a wide audience,” he said.

Kinghorn succeeds longtime director Wally Mason, who led the museum’s move off campus. During his time at UMaine from 1996 to late 2007, Mason significantly added to the permanent collection of works on paper, building on the tradition set by the museum’s founder, Vincent Hartgen.

“Wally Mason really built the foundation for this museum,” Hicks said. “Now it’s time for the museum to set a path for itself and work to become the museum it has the potential to be, to really try to do things that make it stand out even more than it already does.”

Three Maine theater veterans fared well in the Tony Award nominations announced Tuesday in New York. Christopher Fitzgerald and Andrea Martin each received a nomination for their work in “The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein," and Donald Holder, a University of Maine alum, won a two nominations for his lighting design.

Fitzgerald got the nomination in the category of featured actor, musical. Martin won her nomination in the same category for actresses. Both began their careers in the Portland theater scene, beginning with the Children’s Theatre of Maine and working their up through the ranks of community and professional theater.

Holder is a prior Tony winner, for his lighting design on "The Lion King." He was nominated for his design work for "South Pacific" and "Les Liaisons Dangereuses."

Tony winners will be announced June 15 at Radio City Musical Hall.

The smile sealed the deal.

During a quiet moment of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 at Merrill Auditorium on Monday night, Robert Moody turned at his waist and learned in toward first violinist Charles Dimmick. With his eyes closed and left arm outstretched, Moody allowed a broad smile to cross his face as the music rolled over him.

We think of Mahler’s first symphony as a monumental, loud and energetic piece of music. But when played well, it’s the quiet moments that resonate.

The Portland Symphony Orchestra played it well and with great sensitivity during Monday’s Podium Prelude concert, which served as a formal introduction of Moody to the community. Moody and the orchestra repeat Mahler’s first tonight in the final Tuesday Classical concert of the season.

Among those in attendance last night was Henry Fogel, president of the League of American Orchestras. For Fogel, it was the quiet moments that caught his attention.

“What I heard was an orchestra listening to itself,” he said.

Fogel has been a frequent visitor to Portland, since the PSO began searches for both a new music director and executive director. Now that Moody and Ari Solotoff are firmly in place as the orchestra’s new leaders – Moody as music director and Solotoff as executive director – Fogel wanted to return to Portland to celebrate Moody’s debut.

He praised the PSO’s board of trustees for its leadership during the search, and for holding the orchestra together during what could have been a time of crisis.

The next challenge for the orchestra, he said, is firming up the endowment. The current endowment stands at about $3 million, which is about the same as the orchestra’s annual budget. Ideally, the endowment should be three to five times the annual budget.

“This is the perfect time for an endowment campaign,” Fogel said. “You’ve got excitement building about the music director, and you have an executive director who will make himself a presence in the community.”

While the orchestra has not formally begun an endowment campaign, it has begun the conversation, Solotoff said. Soprano Renee Fleming will join the orchestra Feb. 17, 2009, for a concert that benefits the endowment fund.

The news isn’t that Bob Dylan is coming back to Maine to play another show. He’s been doing that for years now, so his May 17 concert at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston is no big deal.

But what’s particularly cool about the May 17 gig is that it’s the first night of his spring/summer tour, and one of only two U.S. dates on the tour – so far, anyway. No doubt he will add more shows on American soil later in the year, but stateside fans will have to wait at least until August for the chance to see Dylan anywhere close to home.

With that in mind, mystery swirls about the Lewiston gig. The Internet is buzzing about this show, as it does with all first-night shows on Dylan tours. What songs will he play? Who will be in the band? Will he play the guitar for more than a few songs, or will he spend most of the concert on the keyboards, as has been his custom in recent years?

I have my dream Dylan set list – it begins with “Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar” and ends with “I Shall Be Released” – but I want to know what you want to hear.

Send me an e-mail (BKeyes@pressherald.com) with your dream set list, or tell me the song or two you really wish he would play. Not than he reads my blog or anything, but you never know.