John Brewer, President

John Brewer is the Founder and was Design Director of Fonthill Ltd, the internationally known decorative fabric and interior design company with headquarters in the Decoration and Design Building in New York for over thirty years. The company was represented in major interior design center showrooms across the country and worked with leading mills worldwide. The company was acquired in 2006 by Stark Carpet and joined their roster of fabric brands including Old World Weavers and Grey Watkins. He served on the board of the Decorative Fabric Association for ten years and was president from 1998-2001. He retired from Stark in 2015.

John has had a lifelong interest in classical music and first attended the Metropolitan Opera in the mid-1960’s when he was a student at NYU. Through the years, he was a subscriber and patron and joined the Metropolitan Opera Club in 1996. He first joined the board of the club in 2002 as House Committee and Program Committee Chair and served as a Director until 2010.

During that time he was also head of the club’s Archive Project, working with the club archives that go back to its founding in 1893 in the old Metropolitan Opera House. He arranged the transfer of these unique archives to the New-York Historical Society where they are currently preserved.

He rejoined the board in 2012 and holds these same positions today. In 2016, he led the Program Committee to create new collaborative relationships with the Met Orchestra and the Met Chorus that for the first time allowed Opera Club members to attend working rehearsals as well as inviting both orchestra members and choristers to the Opera Club to present programs directly to Club members on their lives and careers. He is very proud of the warm relationships that have been developed during this time between the orchestra, chorus and the Club and looks forward to strengthening them in the future.