Herman Krawitz - In Memoriam

With great sorrow, New World Records announces the passing of its founder and longtime President, Herman Krawitz.

Herman was – as anyone who worked with, studied under or even casually encountered him – an astonishing person. Following his service in WWII his career began, as he liked to recall, at a playhouse on Cape Cod; a postcard of which forever hung on his office wall. That early success led him indirectly to Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club, by which he was recruited to manage settlement of a stagehand strike. The reputation this gained him for facility in union negotiations, along with a unique grasp of stagecraft, soon landed him at the Metropolitan Opera where his accomplishments were legion. In his almost twenty-year (1953-72) tenure, he served as Production Analyst and consultant; Business and Technical Administrator; and as Assistant General Manager, where he was the senior labor negotiator. In addition, he participated in soliciting funds with Sir Rudolf Bing for all Metropolitan Opera productions, and played a key role, along with architect Wallace K. Harrison, in the planning for the new Met at Lincoln Center.  

In 1966 – during his time at the Met – Herman Krawitz established the Theater Administration Program at Yale University School of Drama, which offered the first arts management graduate degree in America. Following his time at the Met he served as Executive Director of American Ballet Theater, and was instrumental in the engagement of Mikhail Baryshnikov as its Artistic Director. With Mr. Baryshnikov he developed several award-winning television programs, including Baryshnikov's Nutcracker, Baryshnikov in Hollywood & Baryshnikov on Broadway, which won four Emmys, a Peabody & the Golden Rose of Montreux.

In 1974 he undertook the American Music Recording Project study on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation. This exhaustive study recognized the urgent need for recordings to preserve the wealth of American music for future generations, and also to address the needs of living American composers whose music was woefully unavailable to the public at large. The study led to a $4 million dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, with which the New World Records label was founded in 1975. Herman Krawitz served as President of New World from that time until his retirement from the position in 2011, and over those 36 years – with the support of Board Chairman Francis Goelet (1926 - 1998) – cultivated a label that represents the finest collection of recordings in honor of those composers.

The loss of Herman is deeply felt by those of us who worked with him. One of his great gifts as a manager was to make the work feel vital, and one's investment in it creative. Though not an artist himself he had a fine appreciation of its expression in others, and understood how to make the most mundane task feel essential. If as in Aesop's fable he had a bit of the fox in him, coaxing the bird with cheese in its beak to sing, this bird will be forever grateful for the strength that exercise gave my voice and the betterment of its song. Indeed, today I am saddened to have lost the fox to whom I so often sang.  – Lisa Kahlden