Harold Holt (impresario)

Harold Holt (3 November 1885 – 3 September 1953) was a noted impresario in England from the 1920s to the early 1950s, who managed many of the great names in the classical music world. He was considered the leading concert agent of his time, and was said to be "the greatest raconteur in London, who wasted away his fortune".

Harold Holt was born in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa on 3 November 1885. His father was a Jewish diamond merchant. He trained as a lawyer, but never practised.

In 1924 he went into partnership with Lionel Powell, who had taken over the firm created by Alfred Schulz-Curtius after the latter's death. (The firm had been founded in 1876 by Schulz-Curtius to promote Richard Wagner's music in England. He later took Lionel Powell into partnership.) Powell died suddenly in 1931, leaving Holt with a mountain of debts and a company to run. It is now known as Askonas Holt.

The list of famous names Harold Holt managed was long. It included: Marian Anderson, Feodor Chaliapin, Ania Dorfmann,Amelita Galli-Curci, Beniamino Gigli, Dame Joan Hammond,Ida Haendel,Josef Hassid,Jascha Heifetz, Vladimir Horowitz, Fritz Kreisler, Dora Labbette,John McCormack, Dame Nellie Melba, the young Yehudi Menuhin (in his concerts with Sir Edward Elgar),Grace Moore, Vladimir de Pachmann, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Gregor Piatigorsky,Rosa Ponselle, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Paul Robeson, Richard Tauber, and Luisa Tetrazzini.

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