May 1 (Bloomberg) -- What will become of the world’s most ambitious classical-music agency now that its owner has pleaded guilty to fraud?

That question may be exercising the minds of some of the top singers and conductors such as Angela Gheorghiu, Anne Sofie von Otter and Andre Previn and whose careers are run by IMG Artists. The company, a former offshoot of Mark McCormack’s International Management Group, was sold in 2003 to Dallas hedge-fund manager Barrett Wissman.

Two weeks ago, Wissman, 46, pleaded guilty to securities fraud in the course of an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of corruption at the state’s $122 billion pension fund, officials said,

Wissman, an executive of Dallas-based HFV Asset Management LP, has agreed to a $12 million settlement as part of the probe of illegal kickbacks to arrange pension-fund investments for hedge funds and private-equity firms, Cuomo said.

That leaves the new music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert, and the music directors of London’s two opera houses, Antonio Pappano and Edward Gardner, in career limbo while their agency gets straightened out.

Ethical Code

IMG Artists is 95 percent owned by Wissman and 5 percent by IMG. Wissman was expected at his agency’s London offices this week, but whether his passport has been held or the U.K. authorities would permit entry to an admitted felon was unclear.

The cloud over his agency reached the industry’s regulatory body, the International Artists Managers Association (IAMA), meeting in Luxembourg last weekend.

Asked whether its ethical code had been infringed by Wissman’s fraud, IAMA Chairman John Willan said, in an e-mail, “While the news of Mr. Wissman’s conviction in the United States is received here with sadness and concern for our member company, IMG, Mr. Wissman himself does not act as an agent or artist manager but as an investor in and executive of IMG. As such, he has not by his self-confessed actions and subsequent conviction, contravened the code of practice laid down by IAMA.”

Privately, however, IMG managers were concerned about backlash from artists and promoters. Over the past year, the company that set out to be the world’s No. 1 suffered defections and legal action on a scale unknown in the consensual realm of classical music.

Among those who quit are the stellar sopranos Karita Mattila and Anna Netrebko, tenor Rolando Villazon and baritone Thomas Hampson. As for the litigation, that has taken a sudden, unexpected turn.

Opera and Golf

IMG Artists arose from a golf-course friendship between McCormack, who made millionaires of golfers and tennis players from Arnold Palmer to Martina Navratilova, and the opera soprano Kiri te Kanawa, who liked a Sunday round on a Surrey course.

“Never underestimate the importance of money,” was McCormack’s motto, as he applied to concerts and opera the same blend of sponsorship and media that he had perfected in marketing sports stars.

“We’re looking for any intelligent way,” he told me in 1995, “to cohesively develop a classical company … which is the dominant force in the world.”

By attracting the managers of Itzhak Perlman, Jose Carreras and some of the busiest conductors, IMG Artists quickly became a rival to the New York-based Columbia Artists Management Inc., or Cami, which has more than 100 conductors under management, and other classical agencies such as Opus3 Artists, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles, and Askonas Holt of London.

Asian Expansion

IMG, at its peak, had the cream of a new generation of conductors. Using its offices in the Asia-Pacific rim, the agency extended classical music into new markets and played a leading role in developing the art in China by touring famous artists at cut-price fees and representing Beijing’s powerhouse conductor, Long Yu.

The agency, however, never made a profit. Eighteen months before his death in May 2003, McCormack put his agency on a two- year deadline to make money or get dumped. Six months after his death, the agency was sold for a reputed $7.5 million to Wissman, who is married to Russian cellist and former catwalk model, Nina Kotova.

Wissman devoted himself to getting dates for his wife and extending the agency’s business in China and the Arab Gulf. But all was not well. McCormack’s managing director, Stephen Wright, departed after a year, and 12 months ago two of the best younger agents, Jeffrey Vanderveen and Manfred Seipt, turned up at Universal Music Group with hot artists Netrebko, Villazon, Mattila and more in tow.

Lawsuit

Before Vanderveen and Seipt could test their new desks, Wissman hit Universal with a lawsuit at the New York Supreme Court for conspiracy and breach of contract. That dispute was settled earlier this month for an amount that one insider, who requested anonymity, said “would make no dent” in the $12 million that Wissman has to pay for his fraud. IMG Artists, much depleted, may soon struggle for inclusion among the world’s top 10 agencies.

Among the artists whose futures hang in the balance are the composer John Adams, London Philharmonic conductor Vladimir Jurowski, the pianists Evgeny Kissin and Murray Perahia, the violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn and the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber.

Their reputations suffer no damage by association with a fraudster, but some of them are privately intimating that they would prefer to be managed in a more old-fashioned way. Whether the agency can survive another spate of departures is unlikely. “It used to be a big threat on the park,” said one London agent, “but IMG Artists is becoming marginal to the classical business.”

(Norman Lebrecht is a critic for Bloomberg News. Any opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Norman Lebrecht in London at norman@normanlebrecht.com. Norman@normanlebrecht.com

Last Updated: April 30, 2009 19:00 EDT