Kris Manning is a Vermont-based “artrepreneur” with a passion for the performing and creative arts. She is a professional musician and a Piccolo Spoleto performing musician and artist from 2013-2022, a published author, a MOJA Arts Festival award-winning painter and a nationally recognized sculptor. She is actively engaged in some of the nation’s most prominent events and backdrops. 

Kris has a long history of fostering music and arts education, exhibition and performance on a regional, national and international scale. Beyond her musicianship and artistic skill, Kris honed her business acumen over 15 years working for Meredith Corporation, Clear Channel Radio, Infinity Broadcasting and CBS Radio. She has been a pillar for supporting music education across South Carolina’s Lowcountry as the former co-owner of Black Tie Music Academy – recognized as South Carolina’s largest private music education academy in 2019, and the former co-founder of The Music Battery non-profit, which previously served the North Charleston community.

Kris immersed herself in the arts at an early age. As a young girl, she studied piano, fell in love with drums and percussion, and saw the Golden Age of comics as creative arts inspiration. While earning a percussion performance degree from The University of Connecticut, Kris toured Russia with John Beck and other musicians from the Percussive Arts Society. Concurrently, she studied marimba with world-renowned marimbist, Leigh Howard Stevens. 

Following graduation from UConn, Kris balanced both the performance side of music and the business side. Her early career focused on advertising sponsorship, sales and sales management roles with Meredith Corporation, Clear Channel Communications and CBS Radio. She also held director-level roles with retail and wholesale distribution outfits.
 
In 2023, she relocated to Vermont with her husband and two boys, and immersed herself in the region’s creative culture. Kris is a music and arts creative, a businesswoman and entrepreneur who is deeply connected across the performing, philanthropic, municipal and business communities.