British arts leader takes helm of Luminato
Luminato has pulled off a huge coup by landing Anthony Sargent, one of Britain’s top arts-world leaders, as its new CEO.
“This is a key step in my life, and I’m really excited about getting to know a different country and working in fresh surroundings,” Sargent told the Star in a phone interview Tuesday.
“I wanted to take on one more challenge and do one more substantial thing before ending my career. And I wanted it to be something different from anything I’ve ever done before.”
It certainly will be completely different from the other chapters of his long, illustrious career, which prompted the Queen to make him a Commander of the British Empire in her birthday honours list in 2013 in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the arts.
But Sargent says he has never forgotten the wonderful sense of energy he found in Toronto when he was here in June 2011 for a congress of the International Society of the Performing Arts, which coincided with Luminato. Sargent is the board chair of the society.
“I loved that the festival seemed to animate the whole city,” he recalls, “and that image has never quite left my mind.”
Sargent, 65, recently stepped down after his latest triumph: leading the team of Sage Gateshead in creating an internationally acclaimed new venue for music in northeast Eng- land.
Previously, Sargent worked for the BBC as concerts planning manager, including the work of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and helped create the BBC Millennium Music Live project.
Other career highlights include stints as head of arts for Birmingham City Council and artistic projects as director of London’s Southbank Centre.
At Luminato, Sargent will follow in the footsteps of Janice Price, the festival’s founding CEO, who left in late February after engineering the first eight editions of the annual festival. And everyone knows that Price, who has moved to Alberta as CEO of the Banff Centre, will be a hard act to follow.
Price proved to be a phenomenally successful fundraiser. And Sargent’s record in that department is excellent. A key part of his job will be building relationships with government, corporate sponsors and private donors.
Veteran Luminato board member Lucille Joseph, who took over as interim CEO, will stay at her post until Sargent is cleared and approved by the federal government’s increasingly time-consuming immigration procedures for foreign workers moving to Canada.
“I am delighted that we have recruited a new CEO with incredible energy, a great track record and international stature,” Luminato co-founder and board chair Tony Gagliano told me in a phone interview.
“Anthony Sargent is a true cultural city builder. I am proud of what Luminato has achieved in less than a decade. Toronto has changed and expanded so much since we started. I am confident that Anthony can reimagine the city and the festival, and take us to a new level.”
Sargent has signed a five-year agreement in principle and will be in Toronto for the 2015 festival in late June but may not be able to move into his job for several months. He reports directly to the festival board; other senior staff, including artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt, report to the CEO.
To find a new CEO, Luminato hired Searchlight Recruitment, led by Daniel Weinzweig.
“Searchlight clearly did well and delivered several high-calibre contenders, but a front-runner emerged,” says Gagliano. The board’s search committee, Gagliano, Joseph, Helen Burstyn, Peter Herrndorf, Piers Handling and Rupert Duchesne, agreed.
Gagliano says he looked at the challenge from the perspective of late co-founder David Pecaut.
“What Luminato needs is not just someone highly capable but someone who cares about the interests of the city and can advance them. David would be thrilled about this.”
During an International Society of the Performing Arts meeting last year, Sargent heard from Weinzweig that Price was planning to move on and that the Luminato opening might be of interest for him.
“I jumped at the idea,” says Sargent, “and when I got back to the U.K., I fired off a message to Daniel saying, ‘If you’re serious, I’d like to talk about it.’ ” mknelman@thestar.ca