I’ll be honest. When I mailed this card along with my first artist roster in summer, 1998, I really had no idea whether my fledgling business would survive. More than 25 years on, I guess we can say we’ve done okay….
While the artists have changed (though infrequently), the mission remains the same: to represent a select roster of internationally-acclaimed chamber music ensembles throughout North America, with constant attention to ensure the best possible engagement experience.
Every day we work to honor the trust our musician and presenter clients place in us. We will continue striving to achieve the highest standards, whatever the future holds.
–David Rowe
BIOGRAPHIES
David Rowe
Growing up in rural southwestern Vermont, it was easy to imagine anything was possible, even my dream of becoming concertmaster (or at least a section player) with the Boston Symphony. Joseph Silverstein was my idol, and a summer studying at Tanglewood was heady encouragement. But rather than a music conservatory, I elected to attend a liberal arts college, perhaps subconsciously aware that my relatively late (age 9) start didn’t bode well for my violinistic ambitions. And my bubble was officially burst when I arrived in Ann Arbor to enroll as a masters student - three weeks amongst those noticeably more accomplished talents convinced me to withdraw while I could still get a full refund! A couple of years playing in regional orchestras and working as a bicycle mechanic, first in Michigan, then California, led to meeting an employee of Mariedi Anders Artist Management, who in 1985 recommended me for an open position.
I had little to offer besides deep knowledge of classical music, but I was young (read “affordable”), knew how to spell Tchaikovsky, was a serviceable typist, and soon found myself working in tour support on behalf of legendary artists including the Amadeus Quartet, Borodin Quartet, Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Kurt Sanderling, Peter Schreier, Lucia Popp, Paul Tortelier, Josef Suk, and many others. Over time, and with Mariedi’s guidance and support, I grew in knowledge and confidence, and by 1989 she had entrusted me to oversee her chamber music roster. Representing chamber music ensembles has been my entire professional life (well, aside from a three-year break in the early 1990s to become a tennis umpire including this run-in with John McEnroe on national television), and I still consider myself incredibly fortunate to have stumbled into such a rewarding profession! When not in the office, I enjoy spending time with family, playing tennis, bike riding, travel, trying to keep my violin from gathering too much dust, and rooting for the Dallas Cowboys.
Arielle Gronner
The summer I was 14, I temporarily took over my friend’s job at a collectible record store while she went on vacation. Each day, I rode the bus two towns over in suburban New Jersey to keep the dust off vintage Woodstock tickets, 70s psychedelic albums, and a massive archive of old Rolling Stone, Hit Parade and Circus magazines. As a passionate music fan since a very young age, I immersed myself in the inventory, learning everything I could about the history of rock n’ roll. We didn’t have a lot of customers, but when we did, I loved talking about records with them, finding out what was new or newly discovered; watching peoples’ faces come alive as they talked about their favorite music.
This spark carried me through high school and college, leading me on a journey through a string of music retail gigs, an internship in music publishing, a brief venture into publicity for local music groups, and ultimately a career dedicated to connecting audiences to music in myriad ways. While working in the record industry in New York in my 20s, I had the privilege of attending scores of concerts—sometimes in two or three different venues in a single night: a kora player, a legendary blues singer, and an indie rock band, back-to-back. It was both illuminating and exhausting, and I’m grateful for the broad musical vocabulary I acquired, and still enjoy to this day.
By the time David Rowe invited me on board in 2008, I came equipped with a deep knowledge of organizing artist tours, and only a casual acquaintance with chamber music. My experience had taught me how to be an active listener, though, so I quickly developed an appreciation for the dynamics of a small ensemble; the virtuosity and versatility of highly skilled musicians playing off each other, buoyed by repertoire that is timeless and endlessly inspiring. I feel incredibly fortunate to represent a roster of such talented, dedicated artists, and still get a thrill every time I hear an audience erupt in applause at the end of a performance that I helped bring to the stage.
When I'm not in the office, I enjoy cooking with my family, reading with my cats, volunteering for the Clothing Connection (a local non-profit that serves children), and exploring beautiful Salem, Massachusetts with my rescue dog, Yoko.