Biz news: Gelb’s wife quits IMG
NewsThe increasingly busy Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson has left her New York management, IMG Artists after many years.
She has signed on with Berlin-based Centre Stage Artist Management, who are making a big song and dance of their signing.
Wilson studied at Juilliard and married Met general manager Peter Gelb in 2003.
Norman, I read your letters every day and mostly appreciate them. But in a week when US women – and I dare say all women – are viscerally feeling the pain of male ignorance, really, I should think you’d know better than to title an article about a women by her husband’s name. What in the world does Gelb have to do with Keri-Lynn Wilson’s management? Of course she is another obscure classical musician (oxymoron) and you thought to attract your readers with a more famous name. You could always just put ELVIS in bold letters at the top of every article and be done with it.
Sadly, Ms. Wilson will always suffer the burden of her association with Gelb. The sword cuts both ways.
Sadly, Mrs Gelb would not have conducted her church’s chorus, of not for her association with her powerful husband.
It’s a sad truth that is known to anyone who’s had the misfortune to play under her baton.
It’s just right that she’s known by that name.
Gelb has hired her as the conductor of next year’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk”. He runs a not for profit organization which is overseen by the State Attorney General. Non for profit organizations in New York State have nepotism laws and when they hire, even for a short term contract have to submit to the state that a relative of an executive of the organization is the only person in the US who can perform the work required and that no one else wants the work. In this case, when the GM is running an opera house where many American conductors would give their left foot to conduct, that’s a problem, but the fear of potential career retribution by Gelb for stepping in may be a concern. The Attorney General for NY State should step in and stop this immediately.
He’s been GM for 16 years and this is her Met debut. Hardly appears to be racing to promote her and so clearly NOT a case of obvious nepotism. And should Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (a Nazi in fact) been excluded from her husband’s EMI label or Bonynge from conducting Sutherland (no to the former and yes to the latter but both entirely on artistic grounds). The unending Gelb-bashing on this site is so predictable and tedious (much like the Muti-bashers from Chicago).
It is precisely the nepotism laws which have stopped him in the past from hiring her. By putting her on an opera most conductor’s could care less about, he thought he might skirt the actual laws on the books. The point is, he is the GM of the house, it is not for profit and he has hired his wife. that’s nepotism, period.
It does not matter if she is either competent, or accomplished, the point is, questions are there and it should be stopped until he has left the job and any other salaried role at the Metropolitan opera. The law is the law and there are other conductors who are accomplished and not relatives who can competently conduct the opera.
Keri-Lynn Wilson is an accomplished conductor in her own right, and it’s far from nepotism that she gets to conduct at the MET. We’ve seen her in Montréal more than once and she’s always given very good performances. Nothing untoward there.
Oh, and I agree 100% with the original comment – Keri-Lynn Wilson has a name and she deserves to be referred to in her own name, not as ‘X’s wife’.
He couldn’t keri less.
@Amelia LeClair – your second sentence seems to me spoiled by the very sexism you are supposed to be reprehending. I am assuming (and, if I’m wrong, I apologize in advance) that you’re referring to the US Supreme Court’s appalling and backward-reaching decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Surely you know that there are three women justices on that court? Surely you also know that the decision was 5-4, and that one of the 5 was Amy Coney Barrett? As far as I can see, had she voted the other way, the decision would have gone the other way. So I’m not sure where her crucial culpability fits into your lazy narrative about women feeling the impact of male ignorance. But, if it has any force at all then, as a woman, she stands even more exposed. Also, if you’re able to think beyond your narrowly gender-defined framework, it might occur to you that it’s not only women (many of whom seemed vocally in favour of the decision outside the Supreme Court on the day) who feel impacted by this. I write as a gay man in a civil partnership who wonders where “Justice” Clarence Thomas’s reactionary agenda will go next. I actually agreed with the rest of your point, so what a shame you had to spoil it.
Well, that s not what defines her, but it’s an important information to know when you know Gel stature in the musical world. She conducts an excellent Dorian Cd with south American music.
Not Ukrainian. Born in Winnipeg Canada..
Does she not have a name of her own?
“Gelb’s wife”? Is that really appropriate? She’s not a chattel
Ms Wilson has been conducting successfully in Europe and has earned her opportunity at the Met. Let her conduct and then comment !
Does she not have a name in the title of this article? Is she simply reduced to her role as wife?