21C MEDIA GROUP

WENDE PERSONS

Project Manager & Artists To Watch Program Director

Wende Persons has more than 30 years of experience working in the performing arts, broadcast, recording, and music industries.  Director of 21C’s Artists To Watch program, she is a specialist in new media outreach for classical music, Adjunct Professor of Marketing for the Performing Arts at NYU’s Steinhardt School, and publicist for the leading online classical music retailer ArkivMusic.com.

Wende has done consulting work for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Public Media’s Classical Music Initiative, National Public Radio and Public Radio International. Previously, she was web site manager for WXQR, the classical station of the New York Times; Senior Director of Marketing for Universal Classics Group (Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips Classics); Director of Promotion and Product Management for Deutsche Grammophon; Program Director and producer for WQED-FM in Pittsburgh; and Director of Public Relations and Marketing for Pittsburgh Opera.

Wende Persons has also worked at Wolf Trap, the Eastman School of Music, and as the Eastman Philharmonia’s Orchestra Manager at the Heidelberg Castle Festival in Germany.  She is the librettist of the opera Patience & Sarahby Paula Kimper, which premiered at Lincoln Center Festival ’98.  She received her undergraduate degree in music education from SUNY Fredonia and her graduate degree in English education from the University of Rochester.