“A top manager at IMG Artists has left the management agency after 17 years and brought two of her biggest-name artists with her,” writes Brian Wise on Friday (1/23) at New York classical radio station WQXR’s blog. “The violinists Itzhak Perlman and Nicola Benedetti announced this week that they are joining their manager Charlotte Lee at her new agency, Primo Artists. Lee, 37, had been with IMG since 1998 and worked her way up to senior vice president, coming to oversee its North American orchestral roster of over 100 conductors, instrumentalists and crossover acts, according to her website. In addition to Perlman and Benedetti, she has signed two other IMG clients to Primo Artists, the noted French violinist Arnaud Sussmann and the Philadelphia-based conductor Cristian Măcelaru.… IMG Artists did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the moves. The company underwent a dramatic restructuring in September, in which several senior staffers left.… Perlman made a similar move in 1986 when he left his longtime management at ICM Artists for then-upstart IMG. Benedetti … signed to IMG in 2005 and has been with Lee since (another firm, Emblem Artists, handles her general management; Lee oversees her North and South American dates).”
Posted January 29, 2015
