Rising Stars in...Artist Management

Nicki Wenham
Artist Manager, Ingpen & Williams

It is thanks to Atholl Swainston-Harrison, chief executive of the International Artist Managers’ Association (IAMA), that I learned about Nicki Wenham, an artist manager at Ingpen & Williams in London. She caught his attention not only as a diligent and gifted young artist manager but as the founder of Young People in the Arts—an organization that grew out of her belief that the younger generation of artist managers needed increased opportunities to network and learn about the industry in real-life situations, away from their desks. YPIA offers its members opportunities to listen to and meet leaders of the music and theater worlds and to attend performances and social events in interesting and sometimes untraditional venues. YPIA’s extreme success has attracted attention worldwide.

Nicki Wenham’s early years were filled with music. She studied piano with her mother and subsequently took up the cello. While studying music at university in Birmingham, she realized she didn’t want to pursue a performing career and so began to apply for interships. She landed one at the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, where contact with artist managers solidified her career objective. After working for three years at Sullivan Sweetland Management as an assistant manager, she met David Sigall, a director of Ingpen & Williams who offered her a job in 2008, working with him for all of his artists. She speaks with reverence about her mentor and says that his most significant message to her has been about the importance of building relationships and trust—something that doesn’t happen overnight. Nicki asked David to recommend her for the highly competitive Clore Emerging Leaders Course in March of 2012, a week-long program that she found invaluable. With his encouragement, she has begun to sign artists on her own, most recently cellist Oliver Coates, artist-in-residence at Southbank Center in London. She can hardly contain her excitement about helping him to develop his career.

Ingpen & Williams pianist Joanna MacGregor praises Nicki’s intelligence, energy, and receptivity to new ideas. Without her persuasive powers, she never would have agreed to play a program of Bach, Shostakovich, and George Crumb at London’s 100 Club, a venue better known for pop, rock, and jazz. Prescience and persistence—these are qualities that bode very well for a young artist manager.

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