“The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s spring news earlier this year that its longtime president and CEO, Deborah Borda, was departing for New York [Philharmonic] sent the arts world spinning,” writes Deborah Vankin in Thursday’s (11/16) Los Angeles Times. On Thursday, the orchestra announced “that Simon Woods will become chief executive,” effective January 22. “Woods comes to Los Angeles from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, where he has served as president and CEO since May 2011. Prior to that, he was chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.… The London native was drawn to the city of Los Angeles, ‘[which] has become one of the great cultural hubs of the world—and the L.A. Phil factors into that,’ [Woods said]…. The orchestra’s board chair, Jay Rasulo, said Woods … ‘not only improved the reputation of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra artistically, but he also demonstrated his desire to make it a real civic citizen.’ … Woods previously served as president and CEO of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and vice president of artistic planning and operations at the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also worked as a record producer with London’s EMI Classics from the late 1980s to the late 1990s.”
Posted November 17, 2017
Simon Woods photo by Brandon Patoc
