A classical manager comes out of the shadows
OrchestrasZsolt Bognar, in Living the Classical Life, conducts a frank and open interview with the shy and retiring Marcus Felsner, founder of Munich’s Felsner Artists. Marcus, who had to be eased gently into the public eye, is the agent who fired Valery Gergiev.
Watch here.
Sorry, but somebody has to stop perpetrating a falsehood. Felsner Artists is not a Munich based agency, but rather works the vast majority of time from Marcus Felsner’s home in the small town of Freiburg im Breisgau, 420 kms from Munich. Mr. Felsner uses a virtual office address as a cover address to give the impression that he runs a Munich based agency. He may be able to use a common conference room or copy machine, but there is no full-time classical music agency operating from that building on Maximillianstraße 2. The virtual Munich address receives post for the agency and many other companies that use it as well. 134 companies, no less! See this link:
https://implisense.com/de/addresses?street=Maximilianstraße+2&zip=80539
and if you want to also rent a virtual office in the same building next to Mr. Felsner, here is the link:
https://implisense.com/de/addresses?street=Maximilianstraße+2&zip=80539
My musician friends in Munich alerted me to this charade and I’m grateful that they did, as we all have no tolerance for pretension and illusion, especially at the current time in the classical music business, a time where the business needs to be clear and transparent about what it is and where it is going, not living in some past grandiose illusion of a classical music manager, working out of a palace on the Maximilianstraße in Munich. Those are the same outdated and decadent attitudes that put the business in the dire straits that it is in today.
As far as this video interview with Marcus Felsner is concerned, I found it boring, irritating and pretentious beyond words.
The correct links for the virtual office rental at Maximilianstraße 2 are:
https://virtual-office.center/locations/germany-2/bavaria-2/munich-2/maximilianstrase-2/
and this one, where Felsner Artists uses the exact same photo on its website, taken from the virtual office rental website:
https://www.contora.de/en/location-muenchen-palace-opera
and the exact same photo on Felsner Artists’ site:
https://www.felsnerartists.com/contact
I can’t even bear to watch . Felsner is an amateur in this business
A fascinating interview with insights into the rapidly changing role of artists managers. Would that all had the same objectives for their artists!
Mit seiner überwältigenden Ausstrahlung wäre er wirklich besser geeignet, ein Bestattungsinstitut zu leiten!
(With his overwhelming charisma, he really would be better running a funeral home!)
Frühbeck de Burgos said to me, the agent works for the artist, not vice versa. He lives off the artist‘s income.