
Peter and Cathy Halstead
Co-Founders
Cathy and Peter Halstead have known each other since they were 16. They both grew up in families that for generations have sought to bring art and education to communities both in the United States and abroad. They were later classmates at both Columbia and NYU. Cathy is an abstract painter, who has shown around the world. Peter is a pianist, photographer, and poet. He has published several volumes of poems and photos, and is working on a six-volume piano series, Pianist Lost, for The Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation. Four volumes of his poetry are so far available : Sea Sun, Blinds, Poems of Earth, and A Selection.
Cathy worked with her father in the liquor company he founded with her in 1972, and ultimately became President and Chairman.
Cathy and Peter founded the Digital Lab in the Rockefeller library at Brown, where Cathy is a Member Emerita of the Corporation. Cathy is on the board of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and of the Storm King Art Center.
She and Peter are trustees of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, which makes over ninety grants annually to charities in the United States and England. Grantees include Storm King Art Center, The Juilliard School, San Diego Youth Symphony, The Curtis Institute of Music, the La Jolla Playhouse, Hawaii Opera Theater, and the Aspen and Vail Music Festivals.
The foundation has helped fund films of the Glyndebourne version of La Traviata and Don Pasquale, as well as a film of Brian Bedford’s The Importance of Being Earnest on Broadway. In England, it has digitized the filmed repertoire of the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Shakespeare’s Globe. It has digitized the repertoire of The Cleveland Orchestra, and helped fund a film about Patrick Dougherty, Stickworks. It has provided high-end audio equipment to the Aspen Music Festival and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
It supports diverse efforts in Montana in the arts and education. Cathy and Peter were inspired to found Tippet Rise by the Storm King Art Center, Tickon Sculpture Park in Denmark, la fondation Maeght in St.-Paul-de-Vence, Snape Maltings in England, and by the Vail and Aspen Music Festivals.
Cathy and Peter have two wonderful daughters and two adorable grandchildren.