The former chief executive of Scotland's national orchestra is to lead one of the world's most prestigious ensembles.
Simoon Woods, former chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), has been appointed chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The orchestra's artistic direction is led by one of the stars of the classical music world, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
Woods, who led the RSNO from 2005, moved to America to be chief executive of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2011.
He said: "It is the very greatest honor to have been chosen for this position.
"The Los Angeles Philharmonic demonstrates persuasively and passionately in every aspect of its work what a contemporary and forward-looking orchestra can be in one of the world’s great global cities.
"The chance to work closely with Gustavo Dudamel, the remarkable musicians, a great board, and the tremendously creative staff team is a completely inspiring prospect.
"I join the LA Phil with the greatest humility and admiration, and look forward to helping to lead it through the Centennial and into its next century.”
Tom Thomson, the chair of the RSNO, when Mr Woods was appointed the orchestra’s chief executive in 2005, said: "Simon transformed the fortunes of the orchestra with inspiring and inclusive leadership in a wonderful partnership with artistic director Stephane Deneve.
"His Los Angeles Philharmonic appointment is a richly-deserved ascent to a global pinnacle of orchestral management.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here