HGO Spotlight On: Director of Communications Catherine Matusow
Catherine Matusow loves walking her dogs, traveling, gardening, reading, cooking, her friends, family, and exploring new ways to tell stories—and she’s made a career of that last one. A Houston native, Catherine went to Rice University, where she majored in English and Spanish, before heading to New York to pursue her master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University.
She got her first media job at Houston Press when it was still a weekly print newspaper, eventually becoming managing editor, before making the leap to join a new city magazine, Houstonia, where she later became editor-in-chief.
In 2020, after 17 years telling Houston stories, Catherine found herself wanting to try a different kind of storytelling, one done from the inside of an organization. HGO was looking for someone to edit the company’s in-house program/magazine, Opera Cues, and she joined the organization as its editor-in-chief.
While Opera Cues has remained her passion project, Catherine soon found herself contributing far beyond it, to media and public relations, executive communications, and major institutional projects such as HGO's annual impact report. She has served as the company's director of communications since 2023.
Here’s Catherine, on her life and career, in her own words:
My first job in journalism was at our local alternative weekly, the Houston Press. I worked there for 10 years, ultimately serving as the number two editor to the paper’s editor-in-chief, Margaret Downing, who I still know and love. We did all kinds of interesting work—my purview included food, visual art, theater, events, and some long-form newsier pieces. During that time, I developed these muscles in terms of project management, content development, identifying talent, and, on a basic level, turning ideas into reality.
During my time at the Press, the blog revolution took hold, and we had to figure out, in real time, how to build a digital presence, establish metrics, and grow an online readership. And that meant going from a weekly to, really, daily. At one point I was posting 10 blog entries a day, in addition to my print duties. I had to learn to toggle between short-term responsibilities and longer-term projects. I constantly draw on that in my current role at HGO.
Then I heard about a new city magazine coming to Houston. It didn’t even have a name yet, but it would become Houstonia. They were looking for editors. The next thing I knew, I was part of the startup team for this brand-new thing, which was a wild experience. I had six months to wrap my mind around it before we launched the first issue, in 2013. And one of the hardest things to learn was that, yes, we wanted the writing to be good, but above all else, the magazine had to be beautiful. That was new, and it was very humbling. But it was a fantastic education in presenting information visually, how to split a story into pieces that could be easily perused by a casual reader, and telling the story of our city in a new way.
The skills I developed editing a magazine are so helpful in my current role. Here at HGO, we create all kinds of print collateral, including Opera Cues, but not just that. There’s our annual report; there's other special publications that we do like the recent tribute to Maestro Patrick Summers—one of many projects developed alongside our audience education and communications manager, Joe Cadagin. And even for things like planning the Stories to Stage Gallery in the Grand Foyer, where we do informational displays on our operas for audiences, I apply those lessons on how to think visually in partnership with our designers.
I was offered the editor-in-chief job at HGO in spring 2020. Yeah. I knew that with the pandemic, it wasn’t a risk-free move, but honestly, coming from a career in print journalism, risk was nothing new. And I was so excited by the opportunity. After taking the job, I worked for the company for over a year without meeting most of my colleagues. But I was still learning a ton about HGO and the art form itself, and I made it through until live performance returned.
Today, as HGO’s director of communications, I am responsible for telling the story of the organization through myriad channels in close collaboration with my manager, CMXO Jennifer Davenport, and my wonderful little Communications team. We are part of the larger Audiences team, which also includes Marketing and Customer Care. Across our department, the goal is the same: to shine a light on what’s happening here and attract people to the theater.
To that end, I plan, manage, and execute company publications, as well as our blog, Backstage Pass. I oversee media and public relations initiatives, and the way I approach that again goes back to my earlier career—what, as an editor, would I have wanted to know? What ideas would have made me bite? And then, with the aim of getting the company in front of the broadest possible audience, I also get to work with General Director and CEO Khori Dastoor to strategize executive communications.
Being able to help shape the narrative for this organization is gratifying. It feels amazing to scroll through Backstage Pass and see all the great pieces—when I started, we didn’t even have a blog! I also love looking back through our Press Room page and the wonderful coverage we’ve gotten, whether reviews, a look at the company’s success under Khori in the New York Times, or stories about our new music director and GRAMMY win.
Opera has everything. It’s huge. The stories are never-ending. If it’s a new work, you get to talk with its creators about how it came to be. If it’s a 200-year-old masterpiece, there’s all this history to share. There’s the creators and performers who bring these operas to life through beautiful music and poetry, and the insanely talented people working behind the scenes on our productions. You could pick any one opera, and just write about that for the rest of your life. So in this job, even though you’re always laser-focused on this one thing, you never get bored.
When we’re in rep, my favorite thing to do is attend the opera as an audience member. The only show I’ve missed has been Dialogues of the Carmelites, when I had COVID. I enjoy bringing along family and friends and having dinner downtown, the whole thing. Inside the theater, I love to watch people reading Opera Cues, and see which pages grab them. Then, when the curtain goes up, after thinking about a given opera for over a year, it’s its own kind of magic to finally experience it for myself. I’m always thinking, well, did we get it right?
There are so many things I love about working here. Obviously, it's the people. I love the Audiences team. As an organization, it's the artistic excellence. It's the awe-inspiring experience of being at a company meeting, watching somebody perform an aria, and sitting there knowing how few people out there can do this at this level. And that excellence permeates everything here, every department. We all want to operate at the very highest level to match the artists. HGO attracts really, really smart people, and I like working with intelligent people. When you believe in both the mission and the people, everything else follows.