Victor Ngo-Smith
Founder/Executive Director
Victor Ngo-Smith is Founder/Executive Director of New Cottage Arts. Growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, Victor’s parents, both refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, always wanted to learn how to play music. When Victor and his sister took a liking to “making music” on a donated piano, they were both enrolled in piano lessons, and the rest is history.
Victor remembers those early beginnings each day, and is so proud to be carrying forth New Cottage Arts’ mission of transforming lives and community through music and art education.
Founded in 2019, with roots extending back to 2017, New Cottage Arts believes in the social, emotional, and intellectual benefits of arts education to build a foundation for youth self-esteem, family and systemic resiliency, and ultimately, thriving communities. In both on-site and outreach programs, New Cottage Arts serves more than 400 students in Denver metro with year-round, high-dosage, sustained music and art enrichment.
The organization’s work ranges from weekly group and private lessons for all community members (pre-K to adults) to learn life-changing/affirming music and art skills; providing music and art classes and performance opportunities to refugee youth during family-community migration/integration; developing teen internship programs for under-resourced youth to gain skills in education, performance, and business while earning supplemental income; working with at-risk youth to use arts education and musical/visual art storytelling as a vehicle to combat youth gun violence; and building public art projects that fuse informed community outreach and skills-based education with elements of surprise and fun in Denver’s southwest and north/northeast neighborhoods.
Earning his performance degrees from Northwestern University (IL) and The Juilliard School (NY), he has enjoyed performing on such renowned stages as Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls in New York, as well as working with students throughout the Chicagoland, NYC, and now Denver area, always connecting with local schools and community centers.
Taking from his entrepreneurial parents (life-long restauranteurs), Victor expresses great gratitude for the life-skills of hard work, discipline and community service learned from years of classical piano training, and enjoys a varied career combining entrepreneurship, music performance/education, non-profit, restaurants, and real estate brokering/investing.
Considering himself a life-long learner, Victor continues to empower youth, teachers, and staff each day to make the most of their immense, innate talents, and loves creating a learning environment that is diverse, equitable, creative, and fun.
In the restaurant and real estate space, Victor helped manage and run his family-business of Thai Basil locations in Denver, CO and Las Vegas, NV (2012-2017), as well as created, opened, managed and eventually successfully sold his restaurant, Pho Louisville (Louisville, CO), in 2014. After working in both Chicago, IL and NYC, Victor landed in Denver in 2012, where he began planting the seeds of his real estate business, renovating homes in Denver metro, and growing his rental portfolio with the mission of providing safe, high-quality, affordable housing to families in need. Victor currently enjoys a varied real estate career helping families buy and sell homes with utmost personal attention to detail and winning for each client, and manages a portfolio of long- and short-term rentals in Denver metro, Midwest markets, New Mexico, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Victor is so excited to meet, work, talk, and collaborate with you!
C: (702) 882-8806
Instagram: @newcottagearts @victorngosmith