John Berry (Musician and Arts Administrator)
John Edward Berry CBE (born 22 July 1961) is a British-born musician and arts administrator.
Berry graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 1983, and subsequently studied with Gervase de Peyer, supported by a scholarship to the Mannes College of Music in New York City. In 1984, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, and returned to the UK for successful treatment at The Christie Hospital in Manchester. He was unable to continue playing the clarinet professionally after his illness, and redirected his career to arts administration.
Berry served as the founding director of the Sounds Alive Music Centres from 1986 to 1993. He then founded the Brereton International Music Symposium, and served as its director from 1990–1997. Other work has included employment as an artist manager at Harrison Parrott (1992-1994), a consultant to the The Hallé Orchestra from 1998 to 2002, and as an advisor to several USA opera companies, such as Santa Fe Opera. He was an artistic and broadcasting Consultant (1998–2006) for several video productions of operas, including:
- BBC Films: Turn of the Screw (directed by Katie Mitchell);
- Channel 4: Trouble in Tahiti (directed by Tom Cairns), winner of Best Performance Film at the Vienna TV Awards, Gramophone's Best DVD Award and the DVD 'Or de l'Année Award from Diapason magazine in France
- Channel 4: John Adams' opera The Death of Klinghoffer (directed by Penny Woolcock) winner of the Prix Italia for TV Performing Arts and nominated for the South Bank Show Opera Award.
English National Opera
In 1995, Berry joined English National Opera (ENO) as Casting Director, and served in the post from 1995 to 2003. He instigated the first 'Jerwood Young Artists Programme', which later developed into 'The ENO Harewood Artists'. He became Director of Opera Programming in 2003, and subsequently was name ENO's artistic director in November 2005. The last appointment was controversial, as it occurred without either due process or interview.[1] As ENO's artistic director, he brought in artists from outside the opera world into ENO productions, including film directors (Anthony Minghella, Terry Gilliam, Penny Woolcock, Mike Leigh), theatre directors (Rupert Goold, Simon McBurney, Fiona Shaw and Improbable Theatre), visual artists (Matthew Barney, Anish Kapoor) and choreographers (Mark Morris, Michael Keegan Dolan). His co-producing policy extended ENO's reach to more than 40 opera houses around the world, the most prominent being the relationship with the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.[2][3]
Berry expressed skepticism about cinema relays of operas in May 2012.[4] In December 2013, in a reversal of those earlier statements, ENO announced a reversal of course and a new relationship with Altive Media to take ENO's productions into cinemas. Other developments at the company included, in 2014, a new relationship with restaurateur Ben Warner and Benugo for the redevelopment of the Coliseum foyer spaces, and a new commercial relationship with Lord Grade and Michael Linnit (the GradeLinnit Company) to produce semi-staged musicals. [5] The last actions were in response to the 29% reduction in Arts Council England (ACE) funding.[6][7]
Awards won during Berry's tenure include:
- Double Olivier Award winner in 2015.
- Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) for ENO"s Consistently Outstanding Work' 2015 in the Opera and Music Theatre Category
- 8 Olivier Awards
- 4 South Bank Show Awards
- 5 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards
- Winner of 2014 The Hospital Club 100 in Theatre for the "most innovative and inspirational people working across the creative industries"
- Evening Standard (2013 / 2014 / 2015) Top 1000 most influential people in London
In February 2015, ACE placed ENO under special measures. This had followed public revelations of disputes between the outgoing chief executive of ENO, Martyn Rose, and Berry, with uncorroborated accusations by Rose that Berry had mismanaged finances and lost £10M, and the departure of Henriette Götz as executive director in January 2015.[6][8] ENO countered Rose's accusation by stating that during Berry's tenure, ENO "turned over an unrestricted surplus of £2.4M."[9] In July 2015, Berry stood down as ENO artistic director, with immediate effect.[10][11]
Berry is married to the mezzo-soprano Pippa Dames-Longworth. He was made a CBE in the Queens Birthday Honours in 2014, for Services to Music.[12]
References
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