An authoritative figure at Universal Music has strongly denied my earlier report that its classical agency is about to be shut down. It will, instead, be ‘reconfigured’.

What that means is that one of the two senior agents – no names yet, for legal reasons – will be ‘moving on’ (as the current industry jargon has it), while the other remains in a reformed organisation. The company will be moved to Berlin, in close proximity to Deutsche Grammophon.

That’s all they can say for the moment, even off the record. Here are the two likely lads in happier times, Vanderveen with his Anna

and Seipt with the DG label chief Michael Lang.

Many ulterior agendas lurk behind the new twinning deal between the New York Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Here are some of the more disquieting ones.

1 Long Yu, the Shanghai conductor, is a senior Communist Party official who was appointed music director in Shanghai without the musicians’ approval. Many, in fact, opposed his accession. How does that square with the democratic values of the New York Phil?

2 The agent behind the deal is Jean-Jacques Cesbron, president of Columbia Artist Management (CAMI, right in the pic below). JJ, as he’s known, is Lang Lang’s personal agent. Was Lang Lang party to the deal? Did he broker it? Lang Lang turns very shy when asked in interviews about Long Yu.

3 CAMI has moved in to replace IMG as Long Yu’s preferred partner. On what terms?

4 The Shanghai players are traditionally polite, the New Yorkers notoriously not. Who will be teaching what to whom?

5 How soon before Long Yu conducts the New York Philharmonic?

Credit to Brian Wise of WQXR for breaking the story.

Leaked sections of an independent report suggest that cocaine use has been so extensive at Danish Royal Ballet that even casual visitors and guest artists were aware of it. The company has withheld any substantive comment or disciplinary action, but its balletmaster Nicholas Hübbe (below), once a star of New York City Ballet,  is heavily implicated and may struggle to survival the scandal. Several dancers have quit in disgust.

Here‘s the latest summary and here‘s the full report.

photoL Nikolai Linares. all rights reserved.

A senior figure at Universal Music has contacted me to contradict my earlier report, based on several sources in Salzburg, that its controversial artists’ agency will be shut down. It will, instead, be ‘reconfigured’. More details here.

The project was always contentious, seducing a pair of ambitious agents with four major stars Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, Karita Mattila and Thomas Hampson – to quit IMG and set up shop inside their record store. There were obvious conflicts of interest and Mattila soon quit. The agency, headed by Jeffrey Vanderveen and Manfred Seipt, struggled at attract new talent and an attempt to shore it up by means of a dodgy merger with the London agency Harrison Parrott crashed in flames before the lawyers were finished with the fine print.

Now Universal has finally lost patience with the operation. Vanderveen has approached other agencies to take him on, so far without success. The artists, I hear, have not been told. They are always the last to know.

Anna, Rolando, if you’re reading this: your agent is looking for a bed for the night.

Trebs with King Rollo

Trebs with Vanderveen