Planning for accessibility & inclusivity, designing for
variability rather than predictability!
Interview with Rory McLeod
Executive and Artistic Director, Xenia Concerts
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Photo by Terry Lim
Interviewed by Yasmina Khelifi
International Correspondent, PM World Journal
Paris, France
Introduction to the interviewee
Rory McLeod is a musician, arts executive and concert designer dedicated to creating inclusive and human-centered musical experiences. As Executive and Artistic Director of Xenia Concerts, he leads an organization recognized as a leader in accessible concert design and presentation in Canada.
Since joining Xenia Concerts in 2021, Rory has guided the organization through a period of significant growth, expanding its audience reach and strengthening partnerships with artists, presenting organizations, and disability service providers. Under his leadership, Xenia Concerts now produces more than 35 concerts annually and collaborates with a wide network of stakeholders, including musicians, venues, educators, and community organizations. The organization has also been recognized as a finalist for the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Arts for Youth Award in 2024 and 2025.
Rory’s work focuses on embedding accessibility into all aspects of project design and delivery, informed in part by his studies in Inclusive Design at OCAD University. In addition to his leadership role, he is a frequent speaker and educator on topics including concert accessibility, social innovation, and collaborative leadership, and has worked with institutions and training programs across Canada.
As an active violist, Rory performs with orchestras and chamber music festivals across North America. His work across artistic, educational, and organizational contexts reflects a consistent goal: to strengthen the performing arts sector through inclusion, collaboration, and meaningful community engagement.
Email: rory.mcleod@xeniaconcerts.com
Website: https://www.xeniaconcerts.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorymcleodtoronto
Interview
Q1: Thank you for accepting our invitation. Can you explain how you came to work at Xenia Concerts? I have seen that you are a musician.
Rory McLeod (McLeod): My path to Xenia Concerts is rooted in my work as a violist and my longstanding interest in how musical experiences are designed. Alongside my performance career, I’ve always been interested in shaping concerts with the full audience experience in mind—not just the artistic content, but how people encounter, navigate, and remember an event.
In 2013, I founded an initiative called Pocket Concerts, which presented small-scale performances in alternative venues across Toronto, including homes, offices, and cafés. While the goal was to create more intimate and interactive concert experiences, it also became a way to explore how every element of an event—from initial communication to the physical environment and audience expectation—affects engagement. Ultimately, I came to see concerts as opportunities for social connection and personal fulfillment through collective emotional experiences.
Through that world, I began to recognize some of the systemic and social barriers embedded in traditional concert formats, particularly for audiences who may have unmet accessibility needs or feel excluded by tacit sociocultural expectations. When the opportunity arose to join Xenia Concerts as Executive and Artistic Director in 2021, it was an exciting opportunity to address those barriers more directly and at a larger scale.
One of the things that stood out to me about Xenia Concerts was that, from its early stages, the organization was already applying a core principle of inclusive design: leadership by those most impacted. The founders (the members of the Cecilia String Quartet) had worked closely with individuals with lived experience of neurodivergence and disability, as well as caregivers, healthcare professionals, and community partners such as Autism Ontario. This meant that the design of their concerts was grounded in real-world experience, rather than assumptions about audience needs.
When I was hired, I was also struck by both the authenticity of the organization’s mission and the strength of its approach, as well as the significant potential for growth. Xenia Concerts was already a national leader in inclusive concert design, but there was clearly an opportunity to expand its impact—both by reaching more audiences within disability communities across Canada and beyond, and by deepening the organization’s understanding of accessibility and sharing that knowledge more broadly within the arts sector.
During my first year in the role, I studied Inclusive Design at OCAD University, which gave me a more formal framework for understanding and building on this work. Since then, my focus has been on applying these principles in a structured way—leading projects where accessibility is not an add-on, but a central design consideration shaped through ongoing collaboration with the communities we serve.
Q2: What kind of concerts do Xenia Concerts propose?
More…
To read entire interview, click here
How to cite this interview: Khelifi, Y. (2026). Planning for accessibility & inclusivity, designing for variability rather than predictability! Interview with Rory McLeod, Xenia Concerts, PM World Journal, Vol XV, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/pmwj164-May2026-Khelifi-Interview-with-Rory-McLeod.pdf
About the Interviewer
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
