When Barrett Wissman became owner of IMG Artists in 2003, the takeover resulted in a “shake up of the arts world and especially classical music management.” Since then, IMG artists have been playing “in top venues round the world from Carnegie Hall to the Esplanade, whose programmers know that we can achieve very interesting things.”
So while over the last 11 years Barrett Wissman has engineered substantial success for IMG artists in the western world, he admits that it will “take several years to establish the IMG presence in Asia.” However, he believes that there has been some advancement in this area already, like the establishment in Kuala Lumpur of the new Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Chinese government hiring IMG to put on the Canton International Festival – a music festival in Guangzhou. This is expected to bring more than a thousand talented students in just for the inaugural event, due later this summer. And then there is the showing of Mamma Mia! by Singapore Press Holdings. IMG Artists is now starting to advise corporates directly, without the intervention of government agencies. For example, consultation with UBS in organizing the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra that recently arrived in Singapore.
In addition, Wissman will be seeking out new talent – both in the west and the east. Within this regard, he already picked out Lang Lang, a piano prodigy who is to perform at this year’s Singapore Arts Festival. With Lang Lang and others like him, Wissman intends to try to guide these artists to ensure that “they don’t play too much or too little, and in the right venues.”