Emily Dobmeier starts in May as the Lake Placid Sinfonietta’s new executive director. (Provided photo — Clayton McCleskey)

LAKE PLACID — In many ways, serving as the new executive director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta is Emily Dobmeier’s dream gig.

She grew up spending a lot of time in the Adirondacks — she recalls an early trip to a KOA in Old Forge. She’s been in and around Lake Placid, and about 10 years ago, her family bought a camp at Raquette Lake. They’ve almost finished all of the fire tower hikes and might move on to the High Peaks soon.

“We absolutely love spending time outdoors up there,” she said. “It’s really been a fixture of my whole upbringing.”

Dobmeier began her professional music career with a degree in clarinet performance from Ithaca College, but she quickly discovered a passion for both teaching and arts administration. She earned a Master’s degree from DePaul University in Chicago and a doctorate from Eastman School of Music.

“I’ve always liked to do a little bit of everything,” she said.

In the course of finishing her doctorate, Dobmeier worked at Luzerne Music Center, a nonprofit summer music camp and concert series in the southern Adirondacks. As she prepares to move up to Lake Placid in May, she still finds time to teach private lessons and perform, primarily with the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes.

In Lake Placid, Dobmeier will continue to do a little bit of everything. She sees her role as executive director as the “ultimate facilitator” and advocate for the musicians. The role has an internal aspect — finding ways to run the organization efficiently and effectively — but it is also outward-facing.

“How can we also look at what is our role within the community, and how can we make the greatest impact?” she said. “Whether that’s to our audience members, to other businesses or nonprofits supporting them, to kind of get their mission moving forward as well. Very generally, that’s how I hope to kind of embody this role.”

Clayton McCleskey, a Sinfonietta board member who chaired the search committee for the new executive director, said their decision was driven by a desire to both honor the long history of the Sinfonietta and to allow it to continue to grow and flourish under a leader with vision.

“Emily really is the whole package,” McCleskey said. “It was important to us to be able to recruit somebody who, yes, was skilled in arts administration and yes, could run an organization, but also somebody who was interested in and passionate about the community.”

The Lake Placid Sinfonietta began more than 100 years ago in 1913, when a group of Boston Symphony musicians began playing at the Lake Placid Club. McCleskey is proud that the Sinfonietta has grown alongside Lake Placid, from a private orchestra to an organization that serves the broader community. He said everyone enjoying the orchestra today benefits from the efforts of those who came before us.

“The Sinfonietta exists because, for decades, the people in Lake Placid and the broader Adirondack community have rolled up their sleeves and ensured that what is a small community is able to have a world-class orchestra,” “The small town that pulled off the Olympics has also sustained, for decades, a world-class orchestra.”

Dobmeier credits the work of her predecessor, Deborah Fitts, who has been with the Sinfonietta since 1997, for establishing strong relationships within the community. Dobmeier’s goal is to continue this work by building relationships of her own. Her first year will be about getting to know the community, but she sees all sorts of opportunities for more outreach within Lake Placid and in the greater Adirondack region. She cited the concerts that the Sinfonietta has had at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake.

“Things like that are really wonderful, because then you’re meeting people where they’re at,” she said. “As a new person, a new face, I hope to just be able to make even more connections and learn a lot from the other people in the community.”

For McCleskey and other members of the Sinfonietta board of directors, this kind of work — from free concerts on the shores of Mirror Lake to musical outreach at local schools — is exactly what makes the organization so special.

“There’s sort of an expeditionary aspect to the Sinfonietta,” he said. “This is not classical music in some stuffy concert hall somewhere, this is music as a true community endeavor, that people can touch it, feel it, engage with it.”