Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts Names President

Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, a volunteer nonprofit that has distributed more than $27 million to local music and arts programs since 1948 and sponsors the popular Showcase House each year, announced on Monday that Dotty Ewing would lead the group as president for the 2025-26 term.

Ewing, who served as benefit chair for the organization’s 59th annual Showcase House of Design in 2024, will oversee four music education programs and a grants initiative that distributes hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to nonprofit organizations throughout the Pasadena area.

“Now that I helped raise our revenues in that role, I am honored to lead the organization as we allocate our support and goodwill for local music and arts programs throughout the community,” Ewing said in a statement.

The organization, which relies entirely on volunteers, raises funds through its annual Pasadena Showcase House of Design, a monthlong home and garden tour that ranks among the oldest and largest of its kind in the country.

The 61st edition is scheduled to open April 19 and run through May 17, 2026.

As president, Ewing will supervise the Music Mobile program, which the organization said has introduced orchestral instruments to more than 130,000 third-grade students; a youth concert series that has brought nearly 265,000 fourth graders to Walt Disney Concert Hall; an instrumental competition that has awarded more than $720,000 in prizes; and a recently added program underwriting a Los Angeles Philharmonic Resident Fellow, an excellence-based training program for exceptionally talented young symphonic musicians.

Ewing, who had a career in marketing for cable television networks, joined the organization in 2017. She was previously named Woman of the Year by the Southern California chapter of Women in Cable and Telecommunications, according to the announcement. She has also served on the boards of UNICEF and the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena, where she held positions including vice president, membership chair and social activities chair.

During her tenure as membership chair at Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, the organization said, membership increased by 50 percent. She has also contributed to the group’s public relations and marketing efforts.

“Creating the Pasadena Showcase House of Design gives us all a common goal and bonds our members together,” Ewing said. “We know in the end we will come out with something to be proud of and raise significant funding for our mission in the process.”

Ewing’s first task as president was to lead a team over the summer to identify a property for the 2026 showcase house. The organization said it would announce the location in mid-November.

The organization, founded in 1948, operates with more than 200 volunteer members and was originally established to support the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its educational programs.

Golden tickets for the 2026 house tour will go on sale in mid-November, with timed-entry tickets available in early February. For more information, click here.