Artist Managers: The newly-merged Maestro Arts 'dream team’

A 'Midsummer Merger', you might whimsically say. Or, to be more strictly musical, a 'Midsummer Marriage'. Punning aside, the joining-together on 1 June of artist managements Sulivan Sweetland and Maestro Arts (under the latter’s company name) was something of a surprise. The new, integrated operation sees Sulivan Sweetland staff transferring from London SW12 to Somerset House, where Maestro Arts was one of several artist managements to set up shop during the Covid crisis, dispensing in the process with its attractive offices down by the Thames, in Wandsworth.

So… the natural question has to be whether the merger has come about as a response to ongoing financial fallout from the pandemic. Emphatically not, say Emma Sweetland and Jordi Martín Mont, the latter designated as managing director of the combined company, on whose board of directors Sweetland will sit. ‘Yes, Covid was of course a real challenge to artist managements before the vaccines arrived,’ says Sweetland. ‘But we were very careful when it came to managing costs… and we came through very well. Sulivan Sweetland didn’t lose any staff… they’re such a precious commodity and you just can’t afford to lose them. So, there were no worries on the financial front which prompted the merger, far from it. We emerged from the crisis very ready to move ahead. With the merger, we’re looking forward to facing new challenges, to creating an ever-stronger team.’

The Sulivan Sweetland Covid experience, observes Martín Mont ‘…is one of several similarities between the two companies. OK, we had to sacrifice our space in Wandsworth…but beyond that, the financial position remained healthy. We made no-one redundant.’

So what has in fact driven the merger? ‘Just before last Christmas we were both assessing our futures,’ Martín Mont relates. ‘From the Maestro Arts point of view, we started from scratch ten years ago and have spent the period since gradually developing. We expanded when Thomas Hull joined the company in 2016, but there’s still the need to grow to accommodate new artists and projects. The synergies that will come from the merger will enable us to pool resources and help achieve our now combined aims. Emma and Angela [Sulivan] bring with them their immense experience of touring artists and their knowledge of promoters. It’s a dream team.’

Sweetland additionally points to the factor of her long acquaintance with Rachel van Walsum, co-founder of Maestro Arts (with husband Joeske van Walsum) in 2012. ‘I’ve known Rachel since the 1990s, when she was a business contact while I was working in Australia at Virginia Braden’s Arts Management office. Later we served together on the board of the International Artist Managers’ Association. We’ve talked about doing things together and in fact the two offices have been engaged in shared projects, such as the piano duet partnership between Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne.

‘Yes, Maestro Arts and Sulivan Sweetland found themselves at just the same stage of development at the end of last year. With the merger, we’re looking forward to sharing creative ideas and solutions to problems. We’ve acquired stimulating and thought-provoking new colleagues.’

Staffing at the ‘new’ Maestro Arts will be just under twenty. ‘Neither too large to become unwieldy and thus sacrifice the personal attention which artists need,’ Martín Mont comments, ‘nor so small that we can’t cover all aspects of the job effectively.’

One facet of the Maestro Arts portfolio which holds still more of an appeal to Sweetland is the company’s longstanding commitment to inter-disciplinary projects. ‘It’s an area we at Sulivan Sweetland had been looking to explore more extensively, alongside working within the traditional performing environment.’

Understandably, no news yet of projects which are germinating… but germinate they will. Watch this space; and meanwhile tap into the Maestro Arts website to see the kind of multi-disciplinary offerings the company has been engaged with, via the talents of such as visual artist, director and designer Alexander Polzin and visual artist Mat Collishaw… or the live animations of Grégoire Pont.

‘It really has been pioneering work,’ says Martín Mont. ‘No other company has been working in this way. There’s had to be an element of long-term investment in this…but we believe there really is an appetite for it out there.

The furthering of this side to the business will benefit from the acquisition of Tuck May Loke, who arrives in September from her current position at the Intermusica office to manage projects (and join the Maestro Arts board). Loke’s association with the van Walsums goes back to the days of the original Van Walsum Management, predecessor to Maestro Arts.

Rachel van Walsum, who takes on the role of executive chair to the new Maestro Arts board, foresees a bright future. ‘Sulivan Sweetland's artists complement our list perfectly and extend our creative opportunities in really exciting ways. We don't even know the full extent of these ourselves yet, but we’re going to start by looking at all the new connections to see what emerges… both between our artists and also with like-minded promoters. Having Tuck May on board gives us the ability to think further and be really ambitious in our planning, so we're very excited about this.’

The reaction from artists represented and members of staff to news of the merger? ’It definitely was a surprise to Sulivan Sweetland artists,’ says Sweetland, ‘given that things had been going so well for us. But we’ve explained what the future can now hold, and the feeling has been that it’s a brilliant initiative.’

Adds Martín Mont: ‘It’s always our job to sense possibilities of all kinds before our artists do… and that’s what we’ve done here. As for our staff… they’ve reacted really well. They’re looking forward to working in the same space as new colleagues. It will take a while for things to bed in, but there’ll be no sense of “us and them”.’ (Certainly not on the team-bonding away-day by minibus to the Aldeburgh Festival that’s been lined up).

Using the Maestro Arts company name for the merged operation reflects the relative size of the two merging companies. ‘We don’t feel strongly about the disappearance of the Sulivan Sweetland name,' Sweeetland insists. ‘After all, Maestro Arts doesn’t carry the name of any individual… it’s not personified. I recall Virginia Braden commenting that in naming her company Arts Management she’d ensured that it wasn’t all about her.’

Clearly, the merger process has been nothing if not amicably straightforward. Says Martín Mont: ‘After all, we share the same sense of the direction in which we want to go.’