Audience Engagement Through the Historic House Museum

Michael Maler is the founder of Crescendo Productions, LLC, forging collaborations between performing artists and historic and cultural sites to present engaging, relevant, and historically-informed programming. He has presented programming at some of New England's most iconic and storied locations including the Old North Church, Kings Chapel, the Omni Parker House, the Museum of African American History, the Forbes House Museum, the Robert Treat Paine Estate, and Harvard Art Museums. He holds degrees in art history and economics from Duke University and a master of liberal arts with a concentration in museum studies from Harvard Extension School, where he currently teaches in the graduate museum studies program. Over the course of his career he has held positions at Historic Beverly, The Paul Revere House, the Portland Museum of Art, and Historic New England. Maler currently serves as a trustee for Historic Beverly, chairing its events committee, and is an active member of the New England Museum Association.

Kenneth Turino after 24 years recently left Historic New England to become a Senior Search Consultant for Museum Search and Reference, an executive search firm. At Historic New England, Turino was Manager of Community Partnerships and Resource Development. There, he oversaw community engagement projects throughout New England and was responsible for exhibition partnerships at Historic New England's museums. Prior to this, he was Executive Director of the Lynn Museum in Lynn, Massachusetts, for 14 years. Turino frequently consults on interpretive planning and community engagement projects at historic sites including Madam John's Legacy, New Orleans, Louisiana, on best practices of community engagement; James Madison's Montpellier, Orange, Virginia, where he was part of a charrette to rethink the visitor experience; and more recently with Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater on interpreting LGBTQ history. Turino holds a master of arts in teaching, museum education, from the George Washington University and is an adjunct professor in the Tufts University Museum Studies Program, where he teaches courses on the future of historic houses and exhibition planning. Turino currently serves on the Board of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) and is former President of the Board of Trustees of the House of Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts. Along with Max van Balgooy, he is an instructor for AASLH's Reinventing the Historic House workshop and the two have edited Reimaging Historic House Museums, New Approaches and Proven Solutions. Turino frequently speaks on the history Christmas and his book Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites was published in September 2024.