Adelaide Festival announces new General Manager
10 March 2006
The Chairman of the Board of Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts, Ross Adler AO, today announced that current Festival Artistic Associate and Program Manager, Ms Kate Gould, will take up the position of General Manager and Associate Artistic Director when current General Manager, Mr Simon Bogle, leaves the organisation in April.
Simon Bogle advised the Board of his intention to resign late last year to pursue employment opportunities interstate. Mr Bogle’s resignation will take effect on 13 April 2005, following the conclusion and wrap-up of the current Festival.
“Simon has given the Festival stability and leadership since 2002, regaining the community’s confidence in the administration of the Adelaide Festival,” said Ross Adler.
Simon Bogle said, “It has been a terrific opportunity to be at the Adelaide Festival of Arts during a period of renewal. I have enjoyed working with Ross Adler, the Board and Artistic Directors Stephen Page and Brett Sheehy, and I feel a great sense of achievement to leave the Festival in good shape after four years.”
Ms Gould, who joined the Festival in late 2002 working with Stephen Page, comes with a strong theatrical pedigree. Her parents are NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) and LAMDA (London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts) trained theatre professionals, and her father, Tony Gould AM, later became Director of the Brisbane Festival, and Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
As well as operating her own private entertainment company, Ms Gould comes with substantial commercial theatre success working for The Gordon/Frost Organisation as well as SEL.
Her commercial experience is backed by an impressive network of contacts in the international arts world, as the 2006 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts marks Ms Gould’s sixth international arts festival, managing in excess of 150 events, productions and concerts.
Mr Adler said, “We are delighted to appoint Kate Gould to this position. Her impressive combination of artistic knowledge and business acumen will secure a dynamic future for the Festival. The combination of such skills is rare, and the Board is confident that Kate Gould and Brett Sheehy will be a formidable duo as they prepare for the 2008 Festival.”
“I am committed to affirming the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts as the greatest multi-arts festival in the country. It’s an event of pilgrimage for arts lovers around the country and we want to keep it that way. We are already planning the program for the Silver Anniversary of the Festival in 2008 which will be very exciting,” said Ms Gould.
