Biography

Jacky Guter is a freelance classical music administrator with over 30 years experience.

In the late 1970s she worked for Stanley Sadie on The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (until it was published in 1980), followed by nearly 10 years at the BBC, ending up as Proms Administrator, working to the Proms Director, John (later Sir John) Drummond. There are press cuttings about the 1989 Proms from the Sunday Times, Radio Times and Ariel.

From 1994-99 she was the Administrator at Allied Artists, a classical music artists’ agency. Otherwise, since leaving the BBC in 1990, shortly after her marriage, she has worked freelance for a number of well known artists and for a wide spectrum of music organisations. These included the European Arts Festival, again with Sir John Drummond, and quotes from his autobiography are reproduced below.

Other companies for whom she has been engaged in freelance work include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, Cala Records, Harold Holt agency and a return to the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She completed two part-time contracts (held concurrently) in spring 2003; that of Business Manager of the London Philharmonic Choir (the first person to take up a professional position with this Choir) and as Project Co-ordinator of Prokofiev 2003, working on the co-ordination of events being performed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death (including the administration of a major conference in Manchester and managing a gala concert in London on the actual anniversary day). She has also organised a number of one-off concerts, including the memorial concert for Stanley Sadie in 2005.

Since March 2007 Jacky has been the Administrator of the early music group Florilegium. Although this is her principal activity, she continues to work for a select number of artists in a variety of roles from bookkeeping and administration to management liaison.

Extracts from Tainted by Experience by Sir John Drummond (Faber & Faber, pub. August 2000) References to the Proms ‘I persuaded my superiors that it was essential to create two new posts: a producer for the BBC Symphony Orchestra … and a producer for the Proms, since there was really no one with an overview except the splendid planning assistant, Jacky Kohn, and me.’ (p329) ‘Initially my planning assistant was a very able and alarmingly hardworking woman who had been part of the Concerts Division when I arrived. Jacky Kohn (later Guter) was large, ebullient and at times explosive, and everyone told me she was difficult. I found her enthusiastic, committed and full of humour, and we achieved a splendid working relationship. (p383) Reference to the European Arts Festival ‘My former Proms planning assistant, Jacky Guter, came to work for us and did a brilliant job of coordinating the planning and the very complicated costings.’ (p427)