Appointments & Partnerships
- Roger Wilson has been appointed Head of Music at Arts Council of Wales, taking up the post on 6 July 2026. A conservatoire-trained performer with more than 30 years’ experience across the commercial, jazz and classical sectors, Wilson has worked with artists including Bryn Terfel and Quincy Jones and performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has held senior roles at the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and Grand Union Orchestra, and earlier in his career developed national education programmes as Education Manager at the Royal Opera House. He joins from Black Lives in Music, where he is co-founder and Director of Operations.
- James Johnson will step down as Chief Executive Officer of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) in June 2026 after eight years in the post. Johnson joined the ISO in 2018, having previously served as CEO of the New York Pops and President and CEO of the Omaha Symphony. During his tenure he oversaw the appointment of Music Director Jun Märkl and the development of a five-year strategic plan ahead of the orchestra’s centennial in 2030. Former Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra CEO Jonathan Martin has been appointed interim Chief Operating Officer while a national search for Johnson’s successor is initiated.
- The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) has extended the contracts of Co-Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han until 2032, continuing a tenure that began with the 2004–05 season. During more than two decades at CMS, the pair have overseen significant growth in programming, audience reach and digital presence, commissioning 78 new works and expanding performances outside New York to 73 events in 2025–26, up from 23 in 2003–04.
- Professor Daisy Fancourt has been appointed the Royal Albert Hall‘s first Associate Scientist, a three-year role in which she will lead events linking the arts with science and serve as senior scientific adviser to the venue’s Creative Wellbeing programme, which relaunches in September 2026. One of the world’s most highly cited scientists in her field, Fancourt directs the World Health Organisation’s Collaborating Centre of Arts and Health and the UNESCO Chair in Arts & Global Health at UCL. She holds a First-Class degree in Music from Oxford and is the author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, a Sunday Times bestseller currently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for non-fiction.
