Herbert Barrett (talent manager)
Encyclopedia
Herbert Barrett was an influential talent manager
and publicist
in the classical music
world during the second half of the twentieth century. In 1940 he founded Herbert Barrett Management, serving as the firm's president until 1996. He remained a chairman at the firm up until his death eleven years later. During his career he managed the careers of hundreds of artists, including Sherrill Milnes
, Jennie Tourel
, Eileen Farrell
, Shirley Verrett
, John Browning
, Joseph Szigeti
and Ralph Kirkpatrick
.
, Barret was the son of Mollie Pike, a seamstress in the fur industry. He had two siblings and his father left the family early in his childhood. He attended Cornell University
where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1930. He began working as a publicist in 1933 and over the next seven years built an impressive roster of artists and artistic organizations that included clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman
, dancer Martha Graham
, impresario Sol Hurok
, the Brooklyn Academy of Music
, the Museum of Modern Art
, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México
. During this period he also managed the national radio press coverage for the Cadillac Motor Car Company
and General Motors
, associtations which led to collaborations with George Gershwin
, Jascha Heifetz
and Arturo Toscanini
.
In 1940 he move from purely publicist work to working as a talent manager for musicians when he founded Herbert Barrett Management. Two of his most important clients were baritone Sherrill Milnes and pianist John Browning, and Barrett is credited as helping them to build successful careers. Barrett's firm quickly garnered a high reputation in the classical music world and over the next half century he managed hundreds of successful artists, including the Martha Argerich
, the Bach Aria Group
, Wilhelm Backhaus
, Grace Bumbry
, Carlos Chávez
, John Houseman
's The Acting Company
, Benno Moiseiwitsch
, the Negro Ensemble Company
, Guiomar Novaes
, Ruggiero Ricci
, Kenneth Schermerhorn
, Ravi Shankar
, Billy Taylor
, Michael Tippett
, and Tatiana Troyanos
to name just a few. At the time of his death the Herbert Barrett Management was the largest privately held talent management company of its kind.
Barrett was also one of the instrumental forces behind the "Great Performers Series" at Lincoln Center, notably managing the inaugural 1965 series. He also served on the Committee to Save Carnegie Hall when the concert hall was threatened with demolition in the 1960s. Barrett was awarded the Patrick Hayes Award for outstanding service to the Arts from the International Society of the Performing Arts Foundation in 1997 and received a lifetime achievement award from that foundation in 2005.
In 2001 Barrett's wife of 64 years, Betty Barrett (née Palash), died. They had two daughters together, Katherine and Nancy, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Barrett died six years later of heart failure in New York City in 2007.
Talent manager
A talent manager, also known as an artist manager or band manager, is an individual or company who guides the professional career of artists in the entertainment industry...
and publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
in the classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
world during the second half of the twentieth century. In 1940 he founded Herbert Barrett Management, serving as the firm's president until 1996. He remained a chairman at the firm up until his death eleven years later. During his career he managed the careers of hundreds of artists, including Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes
Sherrill Milnes is an American operatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera....
, Jennie Tourel
Jennie Tourel
Jennie Tourel was a Russian-American operatic mezzo-soprano, known for her work in both opera and recital performances....
, Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell was an American soprano who had a nearly 60 year long career performing both classical and popular music in concerts, theatres, on radio and television, and on disc. While she was active as an opera singer, her concert engagements far outnumbered her theatrical appearances...
, Shirley Verrett
Shirley Verrett
Shirley Verrett was an African-American operatic mezzo-soprano who successfully transitioned into soprano roles i.e. soprano sfogato...
, John Browning
John Browning
John Moses Browning , born in Ogden, Utah, was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world...
, Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti was a Hungarian violinist.Born into a musical family, he spent his early childhood in a small town in Transylvania. He quickly proved himself to be a child prodigy on the violin, and moved to Budapest with his father to study with the renowned pedagogue Jenő Hubay...
and Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick was an American musician, musicologist and harpsichordist. He is most famous for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas.-Life and work:...
.
Biography
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Barret was the son of Mollie Pike, a seamstress in the fur industry. He had two siblings and his father left the family early in his childhood. He attended Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1930. He began working as a publicist in 1933 and over the next seven years built an impressive roster of artists and artistic organizations that included clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, dancer Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
, impresario Sol Hurok
Sol Hurok
Sol Hurok was a world-famous 20th century American impresario.-Biography:...
, the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México
Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México
The Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México is the Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico. It was founded in 1971 and is based in Toluca, Mexico State, Mexico; its home hall is Sala Felipe Villanueva.- History :...
. During this period he also managed the national radio press coverage for the Cadillac Motor Car Company
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
and General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
, associtations which led to collaborations with George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
and Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
.
In 1940 he move from purely publicist work to working as a talent manager for musicians when he founded Herbert Barrett Management. Two of his most important clients were baritone Sherrill Milnes and pianist John Browning, and Barrett is credited as helping them to build successful careers. Barrett's firm quickly garnered a high reputation in the classical music world and over the next half century he managed hundreds of successful artists, including the Martha Argerich
Martha Argerich
Martha Argerich is an Argentine pianist.-Early life:Argerich was born in Buenos Aires and started playing the piano at age three...
, the Bach Aria Group
Bach Aria Group
The Bach Aria Group is an ensemble of vocal and instrumental musicians that was created in 1946 by William H. Scheide in New York city to perform the works of J. S. Bach.- Founding period, 1946-1980 :...
, Wilhelm Backhaus
Wilhelm Backhaus
Wilhelm Backhaus was a German pianist and pedagogue.Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt...
, Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry , an American opera singer, is considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation, as well as a major soprano for many years...
, Carlos Chávez
Carlos Chávez
Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...
, John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
's The Acting Company
The Acting Company
The Acting Company is a theatre company associated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1972 by John Houseman, then a professor of acting at the Juilliard School...
, Benno Moiseiwitsch
Benno Moiseiwitsch
Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE was a Ukrainian-born British pianist.-Biography:Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Moiseiwitsch began his studies at age seven at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He later took lessons from Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna...
, the Negro Ensemble Company
Negro Ensemble Company
The Negro Ensemble Company is a New York City-based theater company. Established in 1967 by playwright Douglas Turner Ward, producer/actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald S...
, Guiomar Novaes
Guiomar Novaes
Guiomar Novaes was a Brazilian pianist noted for individuality of tone and phrasing, singing line, and a subtle and nuanced approach to her interpretations...
, Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci is an Italian-American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. He was born in San Bruno, California. Ricci's brother was cellist and his sister Emma played violin with the New York Metropolitan Opera.He is the son of Italian immigrants. His...
, Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Dewitt Schermerhorn was an American composer and orchestra conductor, most notably for the Nashville Symphony.-Biography:Schermerhorn was born in Schenectady, New York, where he studied clarinet, violin, and trumpet in school. At age 14, he forged a baptismal certificate to appear older so...
, Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
, Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in...
, Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
, and Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent.-Early life:...
to name just a few. At the time of his death the Herbert Barrett Management was the largest privately held talent management company of its kind.
Barrett was also one of the instrumental forces behind the "Great Performers Series" at Lincoln Center, notably managing the inaugural 1965 series. He also served on the Committee to Save Carnegie Hall when the concert hall was threatened with demolition in the 1960s. Barrett was awarded the Patrick Hayes Award for outstanding service to the Arts from the International Society of the Performing Arts Foundation in 1997 and received a lifetime achievement award from that foundation in 2005.
In 2001 Barrett's wife of 64 years, Betty Barrett (née Palash), died. They had two daughters together, Katherine and Nancy, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Barrett died six years later of heart failure in New York City in 2007.