Las Vegas gets quickie divorce from Philharmonic chief
NewsAnne Berquist joined the Las Vegas Phil as executive director in June last year.
She has just left.
No-one’s saying why.
What goes in Vegas never stays in Vegas for very long.
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Their current board chair also functioned as the executive director for a number of years, then they hired another ED who stayed only two years, then Ms. Berquist. One might assume that the board chair didn’t relish giving up control of things. Just a thought but I can think of dozens of orchestras where that has happened.
Thanks Dave
it seems in the music business jobs do
not last very long
Irreconcilable differences?
It’s very sad how boards of directors so frequently make bad hires and then won’t rid themselves of a bad ceo because the board chair doesn’t want to be the one to ax the person they hired. Additionally most board members do not truly understand what it takes to effectively run an orchestra nor do they even know to “check the references that the candidate doesn’t list”–like maybe check with some musicians and admins who are worker bees in the trenches. It will reveal a lot. I have seen this first hand and the bad hire could have been avoided if proper due diligence had been done but it took several years to change the situation and by then…… I’m not saying that that’s what happened in Vegas because I’ve not been following things out there. This is just a general observation that I believe is not uncommon.
This was not a bad hire. See drummerman’s comment.
The pattern is also not inconsistent with a series of hires that did not work out (not necessarily bad, sometimes good people get recruited away) and a board chair who is willing and able to step in to clean up the mess. I have personal knowledge of a few such situations, and for one of them, it’s definitely a case where Al Pacino saying “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” would be appropriate imagery. https://youtu.be/UPw-3e_pzqU
How could anyone be surprised that an experienced, competent individual didn’t last long at the LVP?