Students Janay James and Alejandro Morales from the global entertainment and music business master’s program reflect upon the tenth of the Music Business Seminars, where they were able to listen to Rosa Lagarrigue talk to them about managing artist’s careers.

Rosa Lagarrigue, the head of the largest artist management company in Spain, RLM, came to share what it takes to manage, develop, and prolong an artist’s career with the Global Entertainment and Music Business students here at Berklee Valencia. As our multi-lingual speaker explained, the key to being a successful artist manager is that one must be “able to successfully help develop the artist’s career both short term and long term. You have to see the bigger picture not just here and now.” Rosa’s resume of artists and the longevity of their careers proves that she has been persistent in making artists work for the long term while building global strategies around their stardom.

Rosa Lagarrigue

Starting in the early 80s as an artist assistant for Miguel Bóse, then acting as a promoter in the late 80s bringing artists from abroad, Rosa’s career has developed into the monumental one that she has today. She has managed Grammy Award winning Spanish singer and songwriter, Alejandro Sanz for twenty-one years. Latin Grammy Award nominee Malú has also flourished under the management of Rosa for sixteen years. Other artists on Rosa’s diverse roster include Spanish singer Electric Nana, Colombian singer, songwriter, and dancer Shakira, Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias, and Spanish singer and actor Raphael. Each artist is different, and therefore requires different managerial techniques when it comes to working towards a successful career for both the artist and the manager. Rosa suggested that, “It is very rare to find artists who stay with one manager throughout their career”. Hence, the relationship built between an artist and their manager is a mutual commitment. One cannot work to its full potential without the other.

Rosa Lagarrigue2

Rosa has gained the reputation as one of the top artist managers in Spain, and rightfully so. With over thirty-five years of experience, paying close attention to a prospective artist’s style, performance, personality, looks, working capacity, target audiences, and ambition, her recruiting and managerial skills set her apart from the rest. In the artist management industry it is important to “optimize resources in order to help the artist have a bigger impact on the audience.”

Our seminar speaker also shared some of her most credible attributes as a manager which include: Common sense and being well grounded; Intuition and artistic perception; Honesty; Persistence and work ethics; Good negotiation skills; Speaking various languages; and Having good people skills. As several aspiring A&Rs and artist managers sat in the audience listening and learning from the experiences of Rosa Lagarrigue we gained great international perspective and insight on what it takes to contribute to and build artists in the ever evolving music industry.

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