Arts Council England’s (ACE) Regional Director in the North West, SARAH MAXFIELD, is to take on the role of Area Executive Director, North following JIM TOUGH’s departure to run the Saltire Society in Scotland. This fixed term appointment will run until September 2013 to coincide with ACE’s organisational review and implementation of a new structure which will aim to achieve the administrative savings required by Government by 2015.
CHRISTOPHER CALVERT has left English Touring Opera to join English National Opera as Press Officer.
Artistic Director of the English National Ballet WAYNE EAGLING is to step down at the end of the current season, after seven years in post. The announcement comes a few weeks after the departure of Managing Director CRAIG HASSALL.
Three new members have been appointed to the Board of Trustees at ARC in Stockton on Tees. KATE CRADDOCK is the Director of Gateshead International Festival of Theatre and works as a Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts at Northumbria University. PAUL WILLIAMS is a GP in Teeside with an interest in community arts. And local playwright ISHY DIN is the 2012 Writer in Residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange.
Chief Executive of the Stage Management Association BARBARA EIFLER will be leaving her post to take up the position of Head of Membership at Making Music. She will replace SARAH ROGERS who steps down after six years.
ORLA O’LOUGHLIN is stepping down from her role as Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre to take up a new position at Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. She will be succeeded by ELIZABETH FREEST who has worked as a director at the RSC and the National Theatre.
LUCY MORRISON will assume the position of Artistic Associate at the Almeida Theatre while JENNY WORTON is on maternity leave. She is currently Head of Artistic Programme at Clean Break.
MICHAEL BRAZIER is to take over from HOLLY KENDRICK as the Director of the National Student Drama Festival after the close of this year’s festival. He has worked as Associate Producer at Glynis Henderson Productions and Theatre O.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra has appointed SAKARI ORAMO as its new Chief Conductor. He leaves his position as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra after ten seasons in post.
JIM FORRESTER, Director of the Imperial War Museum North, will be Chair of the board when Cornerhouse and Library Theatre Company merge on 1 April. PHILIP SHAPIRO, who has chaired the Cornerhouse board for 15 years, will step down.
CAROLE BLADE is the new Creative Producer for Dance at the Arts Council of Wales. Previously a dance artist and more recently Co-ordinator of Welsh Independent Dance, she will deliver a programme of activity at Chapter, Cardiff, and with other partners across Wales and beyond.
The new head of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will be TIMOTHY POTTS, who has been Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge since 2008. Prior to this he was Director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas and Director of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
DENNIS HALL, Chief Executive of The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton for the past 26 years, will be retiring at the end of October. He joined the theatre in 1985, when it was named The Gaumont and the owners had been attempting to turn it into a Bingo Hall.
Bath International Music Festival has appointed composer ALASDAIR NICOLSON as Artistic Director. Currently Artistic Director of the St Magnus International Festival in the Orkney Islands, he will succeed pianist JOANNA MACGREGOR, who will oversee her seventh and final festival in May this year.
JAMES BRINING will become the first Leeds-born Artistic Director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse when IAN BROWN steps down later this year. For the past eight years he has been Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Dundee Rep.
HOLLY KENDRICK, Director and Chief Executive of the National Student Drama Festival since 2006, will be joining HighTide Festival Theatre as Executive Director. She will lead the company in partnership with Artistic Director STEVEN ATKINSON.