Simon Foster.

Prior to forming his own consultancy company with Melanne Mueller in 2000, SIMON FOSTER was a well-known classical record and management executive with continuous experience in the music industry for over 25 years. In both A&R and marketing roles, his major label positions have included Director of EMI Classics UK, founding Managing Director of Virgin Classics, and Director of BMG Classics UK. As an executive producer, he is responsible for more Gramophone Awards than any other individual. He is perhaps best known for signing Nigel Kennedy to EMI and the production of Elgar’s Violin Concerto and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, amongst others. At Virgin he created a legacy which is still scoring successes to this day. At BMG he signed Daniele Gatti and was executive producer of Lesley Garrett’s A Soprano Inspired.

His musical interests are wide-ranging, with particular enthusiasms for chamber music, the development of the symphony and the music of Gustav Mahler. Simon has been responsible for over a dozen Mahler recordings by artists such as Andrew Litton, Libor Pesek, Siegfried Jerusalem, Anne Murray, Thomas Allen, Sir Charles Mackerras, the Borodin String Quartet, Domus and Daniele Gatti. He was responsible for the premiere recording of Mahler's arrangement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden, with Jeffrey Tate and the English Chamber Orchestra. He also worked closely with Gilbert Kaplan on the Conifer Classics multi-media reissue of Mahler's Second Symphony.

Simon Foster is a board-director of International Record Review

[Since founding the record label Avie, Simon felt obliged to cease acting as a reviewer]

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