Weaver Artist Management

Weaver Artist Management was founded in Melbourne in 1991 by Jeff Weaver.  It is now one of the longest established of the small number of Australian-based artist management agencies and offers representation to artistic directors, stage directors and composers, to choral, jazz and chamber music ensembles, to solo instrumentalists of all fine-music disciplines and to opera, concert and music-theatre singers.

Jeff Weaver’s earliest background was as one of the most high-profile boy trebles to emerge in Perth, Western Australia during the 1970’s.  By the time he was just thirteen years of age he had appeared as Harry in Britten’s Albert Herring and in the lead role of Menotti’s Amahl & The Night Visitors for WA Opera, he was the solo voice of the ABC’s Let’s Join In broadcasts and had been widely recorded as a soloist with the WA Symphony Orchestra.

He was the very first full-time student majoring in Vocal Performance as part of the University Of Western Australia’s Bachelor Of Music degree and by the time he was twenty-one he had released, on the EMI label, a solo recital recording of German Lieder and English Art Song and was one of Perth’s most established concert singers, being regularly engaged as soloist for such oratorios as Messiah, St John and St. Matthew Passion, Elijah and Carmina Burana by the WA Symphony Orchestra, the Perth Oratorio Choir and the University Choral Society and had appeared as Acis in Handel’s Acis & Galatea and Orfeo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for Collegium Musicum.

During the 1980’s he was based in London where he was engaged by New Sadlers Wells Opera to sing such roles as Nanki Poo in The Mikado and Camille de Rossillon in The Merry Widow.   He appeared in principal roles with the English Bach Festival in its productions of Handel operas in London and in Italy including singing the role of Apollo in Handel’s Alceste in seasons at the Whitehall Banquetting House in London and in the Theatre Royale at the Palace Of Versailles in France under the baton of French conductor, Jean Claude Malgoire with his period-authentic orchestra, La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roi.  He was regularly presented by the Ghent-based company, Werkgroup Oper in oratorio and concert performances in Belgium and France and was engaged as an oratorio soloist for performances throughout the UK and at St. John’s Smith Square and St. James’s Piccadilly, in London.

Jeff Weaver was the first Artistic Director of Mecklenburgh Festival Opera which he co-founded, in London, in 1985 with American conductor, Anne Manson and Canadian director, Daniel Dooner.  He sang Ferrando in the company’s first season of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in Glyndebourne-style performances in Mecklenburgh Square in Bloomsbury, then Basilio in The Marriage Of Figaro and Tamino in The Magic Flute in its subsequent summer seasons as well as appearing as tenor soloist in the company’s Bach and Handel oratorio concerts in London, Edinburgh and Paris.

On returning to Australia he sang principal roles for The Australian Opera (now Opera Australia), appeared regularly over a number of years as a principal for the Victoria State Opera, singing such roles as Scaramuccio in Ariadne Auf Naxos and Flavio in Norma, and was a concert and oratorio soloist for the WA Symphony Orchestra and for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

At thirty one years old and after performing for over twenty-years, he withdrew from further performing in 1990 and the following year, established Weaver Artist Management.

Weaver Artist Management is a member of the Australasian Classical Music Managers Association.