News & Press
Big deal: Vienna Phil and Dudamel in Danville
May 30, 2010
Norton Center for the Arts director George Foreman and director of programs and public relations Debra Hoskins were in the office of a powerful New York classical music manager with a big idea: They wanted to bring one of the world’s great orchestras to Danville for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. They were thinking about the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Impossible, the agent told them. It would never happen.
Walking down a long hall after the meeting, Foreman recalls looking back over his shoulder at Hoskins as she whispered, “I’m going to get Vienna.”
That agent, he said, had just said “No” to the wrong person...
A little over two years later, last Tuesday, Hoskins was in the Norton Center’s Newlin Hall as Centre College and Alltech officials announced the Vienna Philharmonic would indeed be coming to Danville with hotshot young conductor Gustavo Dudamel wielding the baton.
The deal came together with a combination of relationship building, working through non-traditional channels and raising a whole bunch of money.
“It was all Debbie’s work,” said Foreman, who left the Norton Center at the end of last year to take the helm of the University of Georgia’s performing arts center. “If I was still there, it certainly would be the biggest concert I ever presented. I can say with deep admiration, I wish I had done it.”
Read the full story on the Lexington Herald-Leader's arts columnist Rich Copley's Copious Notes blog
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