Charlotte Lee
Charlotte Lee is recognized as an industry veteran with over 25 years of leadership experience in artist management, entrepreneurship, advocacy, speaking and media. She is President and Founder of Primo Artists, one of the world’s leading artist management agencies. Primo Artists represents violinists Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Nicola Benedetti, and Randall Goosby; pianists Beatrice Rana and Seong-Jin Cho; conductors Cristian Măcelaru, James Gaffigan, Gemma New and Christian Reif; and composers Wynton Marsalis, Valerie Coleman and Joel Thompson.
Considered the most modern agency in the field with over 25,000 social media followers, Primo Artists is an industry trailblazer offering a holistic approach to artist representation. In addition to its distinguished artist management roster, the agency represents a robust roster of Social Media and Public Relations clients to optimize and build artists’ presence in an ever-evolving media landscape. Primo Artists is the only agency in the arts field that offers artist management, social media and PR services to artists and institutions around the world.
An active advocate, Lee is the founder and leader of PAMAC, Performing Arts Managers and Agents Coalition. She was a principal in leading the industry-wide lobbying effort that led to the enactment of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grants program, which provided $16.5 Billion in relief to the arts and culture industry — the largest public rescue of the arts and entertainment industry in U.S. history.
Lee received the 2022 Western Arts Alliance Service Award in recognition of her advocacy, contributions and leadership on the Shuttered Venues Operators Grant.
Musical America have twice named Lee a “Top 30 Professional of the Year.” In the 2015 Inaugural Edition recognizing influencers in the classical music business and in the 2021 Edition applauding heroes of the industry who saved the day during the pandemic.
Auditorium Magazine of South Korea featured her in 2020 as one of the “14 Top CEOs of Artist Management Agencies” shaping the arts industry today.
Lee’s passion for music originated from the age of 4, when she picked up her first violin. By age 17, she had performed at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium as concertmaster of the New Jersey Youth Symphony and in recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. She holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated cum laude in May 1998 with a B.A. in Music and a B.A. in Plan II Liberal Arts. At U-T Austin, she served as assistant concertmaster of the UT Symphony Orchestra in performances with guest artists including Itzhak Perlman, Lynn Harrell, Bobby McFerrin and Marvin Hamlisch. She studied at U-T with Vincent Frittelli, a former Ivan Galamian pupil, and participated in masterclasses with Dorothy DeLay.
After graduating, Lee moved to New York City where she began her career in the music business at PolyGram Classics & Jazz, later known as Universal Music Group. She worked as an intern for this record conglomerate that comprised the Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Philips labels. This furthered her passion for the classical music industry, where she desired to be on the frontline with artists and at the heart of the strategy of building careers.
In September 1998, at the introduction of the impresario Charles Hamlen, Lee met the legendary Edna Landau and Elizabeth Sobol of IMG Artists and joined IMG NY where she would eventually be mentored by these highly respected industry leaders. It was through this mentorship that she developed a strong work ethic for integrity and excellence. From the start, Lee had the honor of working as part of the exclusive management teams for luminaries such as pianists Lang Lang and Evgeny Kissin, violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, and conductors Franz Welser-Möst and Ivan Fischer.
Lee quickly gained the trust of these renowned artists and was promoted in 2001 to become IMG Artists’ youngest manager at age 24. In 2007, she was appointed the agency’s youngest vice president at age 30. Her roster of artists who she personally managed grew, and she eventually took on the general management of Itzhak Perlman, amongst other internationally recognized artists. She served for seven years as Director of Orchestral Booking in overseeing the booking of IMG’s North American orchestral roster of nearly 100 conductors, instrumentalists and symphony pops shows. It was through this dual role that she established her strong, close relationships with the major orchestras of North America.
In January 2015, Lee left IMG Artists and founded Primo Artists with the mission of establishing it as one of the leading artist management agencies in the world.