George Foreman, director of the Norton Center for the Arts, shown standing in the middle of Newlin Hall in August, as the theater was undergoing a rennovation, including replacing all the seats. Photo by Rich Copley | staff.

George Foreman, the impresario who made the Norton Center for the Arts an unlikely cultural hotspot, will leave at the end of this year to become the new director of the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center.

“I’m really excited, flattered and honored,” Foreman said, when reached at his office. “They have some wonderful things going on down there and I hope to build on that.”

The University of Georgia’s president is former Centre College President Michael F. Adams.

“It is a nice set of circumstances,” Foreman said of the prospect of working for Adams again. “I welcome the opportunity to renew that association.”

Foreman said Adams did not pursue him for the position but that Adams’ presence did pique his interest in the opportunity at a time when, “I wasn’t looking for a job.”

At Georgia, Foreman will oversee a concert hall, which is often featured on the public radio program Performance Today, recital hall, fine arts theater and the university chapel.

“I always think the best thing I have done in my career I haven’t done yet,” Foreman said, “and the best thing to happen for the Norton Center hasn’t happened yet.”

If that’s the case, over the last 26 years, Foreman has given himself and his successor tough acts to follow.

Since arriving at the Norton Center in 1983, Foreman brought a who’s who of classical music and popular entertainment stars – from Mikhail Baryshnikov to Dolly Parton – to the cultural complex at Centre College, a school with around 1,200 students in Danville, a town with a population of just over 15,000. For many acts that rolled through the Norton Center’s Newlin Hall and Weisiger Theatre, Danville was the smallest town they played.

In addition to entertainers, the Norton Center hosted the Vice-presidential candidates debate between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman in 2000.

Reflecting on his tenure, Foreman zeroed in on the March performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the March 2001 performance of Morton Feldman’s 6-hour-long Second String Quartet by The Flux Quartet as highlights.

“I remember reading about that being done in New York, and I thought, the next place that should happen is Centre College,” said Foreman, who recalled students bringing a couch from the theater’s props department and plopping it in front of the stage for the quarter day performance. Similarly, he delighted that 500 Centre students – “nearly half the student population” – saw the New York Philharmonic.

“My first few years, I got to know the woman this center was named after,” Foreman said of Jane Morton Norton, a Louisville philanthropist. “I hope I have in some way been able to realize her vision of what she wanted this place to be.”

Most recently, Foreman oversaw a $3 million renovation of the Norton Center that will debut later this week with a season-opening presentation of a touring production of Camelot.

Foreman is also the founder of the Great American Brass Band Festival, an event that draws tens-of-thousands of visitors to Danville each year, and the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, which brings members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill Memorial Day weekend.

A press release from Centre said a national search for a new director for the Norton Center will commence immediately. Milton Reigelman, who has held many posts at Centre, including acting president, will serve as acting director of the center and Debra Hoskins will be the assistant director.