Music director hires her former agent as head of artistic planning

Music director hires her former agent as head of artistic planning

News

norman lebrecht

May 26, 2022

Nathalie Stutzmann’s first hire as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is to bring in the Frenchman Gaetan Le Divelec as VP of artistic planning.

Le Divelec was her agent at AskonasHolt until he resigned two years ago to pursue ‘my personal journey’.

Guess she likes to have a friendly face in the house.

Comments

  • J Higgins says:

    What a fair and open process!

  • Snowy says:

    Could you not, for once, give us the news without having to include a snide comment at the end?

  • Petros Linardos says:

    Guess a judgment without information is nonsense.

  • Old Man in the Midwest says:

    As we say in Chicago:

    “If I can’t hire my family or my friends, who do you expect me to hire?”

  • MacroV says:

    Makes sense. Someone who is well wired into the business. The job isn’t just planning programs but booking performers.

    • drummerman says:

      He may have a rude awakening. Being an artist manager is quite different than being the VP of artistic planning for a symphony. Just wait until he encounters their collective bargaining agreement.

      • Peter San Diego says:

        Collective bargaining is the province of the HR department and whoever is in charge of operations, not artistic planning.

        • drummerman says:

          Thank you for pointing that out. Since I’ve managing orchestras since 1984, I wouldn’t know anything about the subject.

  • stickles says:

    LOL. Guess Kevin Beacon is lucky not to have been tapped to run any arts organisations.

  • Graham says:

    There is nothing unusual in this at all. Robert Spano had Evans as his partner at the ASO for years, and that was very successful.

  • Peter says:

    You have given no information about the recruitment process. But you imply nepotism. Any evidence before you make judgment ?

  • Piston1 says:

    And this is how it happens: the basic off-shoring of the artistic-director profession in the United States to often second-rate white Europeans, all under the veneer of BLM, DEI, and MeToo. In the 80s and 90s it was factory jobs to Mexico and China; in the 2000s, tech jobs to Beijing and Bangalore; and now, this. The American classical music scene in the 1980s and 90s was actually far more diverse.

  • Rafael F says:

    This is a conflict of interest, who’s the artistic agent going to to hire artists from? Askonas Holt? Like I said before all these second rate European conductors should all go back home. American conductors should be at the helm of American orchestras making programming decisions. America for the Americans!!!

  • Jim Utz says:

    Stutzmann conducted a superb Tchaikovsky with the San Francisco Symphony last week and the orchestra appeared to love her. Best of luck to her in Atlanta.

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