Ingpen & Williams International Artists' Management, founded in London in 1946, [1] was a British classical music talent management agency. It was named for founders Joan Ingpen and her dog Williams, a dachshund. [2]
Ingpen, conductor Georg Solti's agent during the 1950s, [3] became artistic administrator of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in 1961 at Solti's request, [1] [3] after which Ingpen & Williams was managed by Howard Hartog, [4] [5] editor of European Music in the Twentieth Century [6] with help from his wife, the concert pianist Margaret Kitchin.
It was Joan Ingpen who put lyric tenor Luciano Pavarotti on the international opera map in 1963. [7] [8] [9] She hired him to cover for the role of Rodolfo in La bohème in the event that Giuseppe Di Stefano was unable to perform. Di Stefano withdrew on the second night, and Pavarotti's more than twenty five performances drew great acclaim.
The artists represented by Ingpen & Williams include, among many others, [10] Richard Armstrong, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel, Janina Fialkowska, the Guarneri Quartet, Barbara Hendricks, Heinz Holliger, Ralph Kirshbaum, Paul Lewis, Peter Serkin, Graham Vick, Roger Vignoles, Radovan Vlatkovic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and West-Eastern Divan.
Joan Ingpen died December 29, 2007, aged 91. [2]
In September 2016 Ingpen and Williams Limited changed its company name to Groves Artists Limited, and continues to manage artists such as Sir Mark Elder, Sir Richard Armstrong and Graham Vick.
Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt, and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner, and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics, and being of Jewish background, he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House, he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist.
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Monica Sinclair was a British operatic contralto, who sang many roles with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden during the 1950s and 1960s, and appeared on stage and in recordings with Dame Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Malcolm Sargent and many others. She had a great gift for comedy, and sang in recordings of many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, as well as in recordings from the standard operatic repertory.
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Founded in 1946 by Joan Ingpen and her dog Williams, the business passed into the hands of Howard Hartog when Joan Ingpen moved to Covent Garden as artistic administrator at the request of Sir Georg Solti. She subsequently held similar positions at the Paris Opéra and the Metropolitan Opera New York.
Today Ingpen & Williams remains a leading player in classical music management, with a roster of artists that includes Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel and a host of well-known singers.[ dead link ] (Article includes photograph of Joan Ingpen with her first husband Alfred Dietz and her business partner Williams the dog.)