Board and Staff

Anita Orne | Executive Director
Anita Orne, Executive Director, brings a broad background as a teacher, musician, program director, board member, emcee, artist and more. Anita knows the Orcas Island Chamber Festival from the inside out. She has served on the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s Board for six years. Since 2000, Anita has also videotaped every concert during the Summer Festival to ensure a magnificent archival history. And she’s been one of the dedicated Pied Pipers at Orcas preschools, a program developed by the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival to introduce young ones to the wondrous world of music. Anita’s impact is felt on Shaw Island, too, where she is Music Director of the Shaw Island School District. She works with their community to promote music and music education, and her role there continues, in addition to her Executive Director responsibilities. Since her move to Orcas in the late 1980s, Anita has served on many boards and committees. Plus, you’ll find her singing and playing everything from the guitar, bass and banjo – to mandolin, ukulele and saw – as a member of the music groups: JP and the OK Rhythm Boys and The Olga Symphony.

Linda Slone | Festival Manager
Before becoming OICMF’s Festival Manager, Linda volunteered for many seasons as the Festival’s Assistant Stage Manager and proofreader for the annual Festival program. She graduated from Western Washington University with a B.A. in Music and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Non-Fiction Editing from the University of Washington. As a flute player, she has performed in numerous community ensembles in the San Juan Islands and throughout Western Washington. She is currently a member of Island Sinfonia and the Orcas Island Community Band. Linda has enjoyed working for a variety of Orcas Island businesses, including The Gothic Catalog and Loft Recordings, Pure and Simple Music, Darvill’s Bookstore, Washington Federal, Orcas Island School District’s library, and several of the finest dining establishments on the island.

Mary Taylor | Production & Volunteer Coordinator
A native of Mobile, Alabama, Mary Taylor is an author, editor, teacher, and former journalist. She relocated to Orcas with her husband, Clint Burdette, shortly before the pandemic in 2019. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hollins University and an M.F.A. from University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her two books of poetry, South (2019) and 7,000 Sparrows (2016), were published by Groundhog Poetry Press. Her writing across a range of disciplines has been published in anthologies, newspapers, and journals, including Blackbird, Mississippi Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. She has taught and studied in Tanzania, most recently in 2015, when she received a Fulbright Hays Fellowship to travel to Arusha for advanced language study. During her time there, she volunteered extensively, serving as a media consultant and head English teacher for non-profits assisting refugees in the Kigoma region. Writing aside, the delight of her life has been learning from the refugees and immigrants she has taught, befriended, and loved, in East Africa and in the United States.