Florida Grand Opera Secures New Public Relations Manager
By: Molly Tracy Dec. 19, 2016
Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is pleased to welcome a new addition to the company's marketing and communications team. Brian Kellow, acclaimed arts journalist and blogger, will serve as Public Relations Manager in January 2017.
"This is an amazing opportunity for us as a company," said Kal Gajraj, Director of Marketing and Communications at Florida Grand Opera. "Mr. Kellow's extensive knowledge of operatic repertoire and esteem in arts circles will raise our profile to new heights."
Most recently featured at Opera News, Brian Kellow brings his incredible rhetorical talent and unique critical perspective to Florida Grand Opera's public relations department. His vision and enthusiasm transitions an older art form into a modern point of view for readers both online and in print.
Kellow will serve as the day-to-day media contact in the local and international press community and manage all publicity effort to re-position itself and intensify its branding efforts in the global opera community.
Kellow is best known in the opera world for his tenure at Opera News magazine. As its executive editor, he oversaw the magazine's reformatting as a monthly publication in 1998. From 2000 to 2016, he worked as Opera News' features editor, and contributed his widely read monthlycolumn, "On the Beat," which dealt with personalities in the music industry. While at Opera News, he brought numerous authors to the magazine's pages for the first time, among them, Colm Toíbín, Peter Sagal, Thomas Mallon, Jan Morris, Elizabeth Hardwick, ElizaBeth Spencer, Jeanine Basinger, Reynolds Price, and Camille Paglia.
He is also known as a popular host at New York City musical events, including gala concerts of the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Giulio Gari Foundation, and the Martina Arroyo Foundation.
Kellow is also a noted biographer. His most recent book, Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent, was published by Viking in 2015 and became a New York Times Best Seller. In The New York Times Book Review, Alexandra Jacobs called it "a reflective, soulful book." It has been optioned for a film by Morgan Spurlock's company, Warrior Poets Productions.
He is also the author of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2011. In The New York Times Book Review, Frank Rich praised the book for its "sure-footed sophistication." Pauline Kael subsequently made Best of the year lists of The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, and Booklist. The Critic, a screenplay based on his Kael biography, was co-athored by Michael Slade and has been optioned by Maven Films.
Kellow is the author of Ethel Merman: A Life (2007), The Bennetts: An Acting Family (2004), and the co-author of Can't Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell (1999). His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, Travel & Leisure, Opera, and other publications. His literary papers are collected at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center of Boston University.
A native of Oregon, Kellow moved to New York in 1982. His first job in the music industry was working as personal secretary to Omus Hirshbein, director of performing arts at the Ninety-second Street Y.
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