Artists under pressure to join bigger agencies
NewsThe trumpeter Alsion Balsom quit boutique management this week and returned to HarrisonParrott’s frontlist. She was formerly with Imogen Lewis Holland.
The Scottish mezzo Karen Cargill has joined AskonasHolt from Maxine Robertson. Askonas has also added the Swiss-Canadian mezzo-soprano, Simone McIntosh,
There is a distinct trend of artist being pressured to join bigger firms.
Pressured by who exactly? You make it sound like they are forced by someone or some dark force to do it… Could it be that several months into this new post-covid era, artists realize that they can sometimes (I insist: sometimes) be better served by a bigger player? Your dislike of big agencies is well documented, so I suspect a fair amount of bias is in play here…
Pressured by market forces. As demand shrinks above supply of musicians, they need bigger reach n business muscle to earn their living. Boutique shops’ days are numbered.
Or maybe they just want to make some money?
“Pressured” by whom?
Hi Norman: as a 25-year boutique agent, I would be very interested to hear about any new or unusual pressuring tactics you may be aware of? Or any data trends which support your thesis? It’s certainly possible. But I wonder if this might simply represent “business as usual “ for our field? Any artist who is not engaged as frequently (or remuneratively) as they wish will naturally explore options, and some will elect change, whether large-to-small or the other way ‘round.
Thank you for your rational voice!
All to do with there being enough work. Sadly, the whole classical music profession hasn’t just picked up from March 2020, and then audience attendance is very patchy too.
Being pressured by whom?
Pressured by whom??
I suspect ‘pressured’ might be read as ‘like to get more work in a post covid era’. Who knows why they are moving, though.
Mind you, as someone who one had the misfortune of working for Askonas Holt, I’d avoid that toxic place like the plague!
If you’re a promoter in UK or Europe and asked for Alison Balsom as soloist with an orchestra or for recital (which I have done) then you’ll know she does not want to be touring anymore (if in doubt, look at her husband for confirmation that she doesn’t need the stress/income from that kind of big career!!!!!) so the bigger agencies can handle the load of work vs low income for being a 95% recording artist.
As far as Karen C and Maxine Robertson are concerned, I had heard that Maxinr is choosing to trim her list slowly, so again this move somewhat makes sense if that is true. I repeat it is only a rumour.
There is no “ pressure” from anywhere – just unique situations that you’ve conflated, Norman!
Artists are leaving big agencies weekly, Norman.
Elim Chan, Yulianna Avdeeva just left HP and there are many more you never mentioned. The only “pressure” is that boutique agencies are no paying for this kind of „news”.
Nobody pays Slippedisc.com to insert any kind of news.
damned if you do, damned if you don’t..this is definitely not a 1+1=2 situation and it always helps to have a hard working record company contract
Interesting if the facts true, for it reverses the course taken by many agencies and artists in the 1960s, 70s and later. The days when Ibbs & Tillett and Harold Holt ruled the agency roost were then downsizing and in some cases dying as smaller boutique agencies began to take off. I think
Christopher Hunt was one of the first of the new ones to appear, with perhaps ironically Jasper Parrott and Terry Harrison following a few years later, although much smaller specialist agencies run by the likes of Lotte Medak, John Coast, Sander Gorlinsky and Lies Askonas did exist. Askonas was then a small specialist agency before it merged with Harold Holt as a way of competing with the mega agency IMG Artists. In the USA CAMI ruled the roost with Wilford’s 800 soloists and hidden list of over 100 conductors including most of those at the top of the profession. Are we now likely to see these behemoths controlling artists once again?
It’s been happening for some years. The ‘pressure’ is down to orchestras and opera companies only now setting their sights on the big agencies for their choice of artists. A paucity of artistic talent in those organisations – gone are the Drummonds, Tooleys, Hemmings, Gillinsons, Grays, etc – means that those choosing the performers simply don’t know their stuff as predecessors used to. Hence the ‘talent’ pool becomes smaller, as orchestra/opera managements see the same old faces and can’t then look beyond them. Hence, the vicious circle. I highly doubt, as just one recent example, that the wholly inadequate baritone chosen by ENO to sing (or not, as it turned out) Scarpia would have done so had he been with, say, Steven Swales or Mark Kendall. But there’s both a misguided belief, ‘he’s with HarrisonParrott so he must be good’ and a sense of no risk because if they choose an artist from a huge agency who turns out – as in this case – to be rubbish then they can always write it off as a surprise! The fact that the singer who eventually sang just about all of those Tosca performances was free to do so, by the way, begs the question why wasn’t he engaged in the first place?!