Biz news: More cracks at IMG

Biz news: More cracks at IMG

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norman lebrecht

May 11, 2021

Insiders tell us that Stefania Almansi is leaving IMG Artists this summer.

Stefania is a London-based v-p who looks after two-dozen top singers, among them Susan Graham, Alice Coote, Gerald Finlay and Eric Owens.

UPDATE: IMG Artists inform us:  Stefania has decided to retire at the end of the summer. She is informing her artists and the team…. In her 30 years with IMG Artists, she has made an extraordinary contribution to the performing arts.

Comments

  • in bocca al lupo says:

    Finley….!!

  • in bocca al lupo says:

    Great lady, what a loss, hope she doesn’t retire and regroups to reappear in a little while.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    IMG will probably weather this crack. I’ve lost track of how long and how often we’ve hearing of cracks at IMG in this blog. Without much effort, I traced this article from January 2017, where IMG has been referred to as “crumbling”.

    https://slippedisc.com/2017/01/two-more-agents-quit-crumbling-img/

  • Whitmere says:

    Matthew Horner has several complaints against him and he recently failed to inform a client of his about the cancellation of a contract and has now put into motion new case law that could negatively impact any artist performing at the MET. The judge said in this particular case that the MET could cancel any contract it wants with impunity – meaning regardless of your contract with your management and/or AGMA, the MET now has case law to backup cancelling any contract they want without having to pay it out. So, yes… IMG is about to go south very quickly… more importantly, a singer’s rights under New York Law are under attack by an institution that treats their players/performers like worthless cattle. Good Luck!

    • Bruno Michel says:

      What does this have to do with Stefania Almansi? Also, when making such accusations, could you be specific, and include at least press articles or official statements which corroborate?The comment is very badly structured, and quickly moves on from an attack on Matthew Horner (a respected and seasoned professional in our business) to criticising of a judge and its decisions, and on to the now commonplace criticisms of the Met, totally unrelated to the nature of the above post. There is no clear correlation between the first two parts (i.e. how did Matthew Horner’s alleged failure to inform a client of a cancellation resulted in the new case law? How did he “put in motion” the new case law?). Such statements, consisting of personal attacks, must be done with documented evidence, lest one exposes oneself to libel. In another exemple of failing logic in discourse, the comment states “so, yes, IMG is about to go south very quickly” (a statement we have all been hearing for 15 years now), without an explanation for it, as this is not connected to the sentence before or after, or to the body of the comment, which relates purely to the Met and a lawsuit.

  • Vaquero357 says:

    On a positive note: IMG is still doing better than CAMI at the moment. {;-)

  • Bruno Michel says:

    A wonderful person and a great manager, she will be much missed across the business. The way she conducts her business in the most professional and balanced manner, with determination and politeness, but also with a personal touch and with an indestructible smile and ever-lasting good humour is an example to us all. I do not agree with the implications of the title of the post that this would signal problems at IMG (a line of thought that has been followed by the Author, and not just by him, for many years): surely, given the situation the business finds itself in now, and the challenges it faces over the coming years, not to mention the phenomenal, regularly mounting amount of stress under which managers have been living in the last 2 decades anyway (ganz zu schweigen von the covid situation), all this would certainly justify that one who is in a position to retire (and this is no slur on the age of the beautiful Mme Almansi) would gladly jump to the opportunity of doing so now, without it being an indication of problems at IMG. Signora Almansi is not the only one who has taken that step this year, and we all know managers who have decided to seize the opportunity which this crisis presents to stop risking a stroke daily from high blood pressure, to stop being unable to eat from knots in one’s stomach, nor sleep from worry, and to start enjoying life. I am sure she will. And I will miss her.

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