How the 'Grande Dame' of Classical Artist Management Got Her Start
Since leaving IMG Artists, a firm she co-founded, Edna Landau has been consulting remotely from the east coast to downtown’s Colburn Conservatory of Music and occasionally speaking to rapturous audiences of publicists, managers, parents and other classical music industry aspirants.
Ahead of a November engagement in Toronto, Landau told Canada’s Jewish Tribune that while there are today far fewer notable music critics, the media horizon is much friendlier to effective self-promotion. She also revealed how her own career was sparked by a tidbit in the New York Times:
“I saw an ad for an organization called Young Concert Artists. It was a clerical job as the assistant to the director. They wanted someone full-time; I wanted to work part-time as I had a young child at home. Well they hung the phone up on me. I ended up going down there in person. They gave me some tests and I got the job. I was there for five years and really learned everything about the business.”
Landau also maintains a blog at MusicalAmerica.com, “Ask Edna,” where she recently example answered a question about how to best manage a YouTube artist-profile.
