Emil Kang, music professor and also the executive director for the arts at the University of North Carolina, was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama as a member of the National Council on the Arts on Tuesday, according to reports.

The National Council on the Arts, consisting of 14 members, is in charge of operating a $150 billon fund on supporting the country’s performing arts. 

Born in 1968 in New York, the second-generation Korean American previously served as president and executive director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Kang also led the Seattle Symphony and the American Composers Orchestra and was an orchestra management fellow with the League of American Orchestras.

He is also a secretary of the Board of Directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and a member of both the Nominating Committee of the International Society for the Performing Arts and the Board of Advisors of the Kenan Institute for the Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Kang studied economics at University of Rochester.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)