Sally Groves, the long-standing and greatly respected Creative Director of Schott, the music publisher, will retire next year and will be replaced by Sam Rigby. Groves, who will have worked for Schott for 40 years, spearheaded Schott’s roster of some of the leading composers of our time.

Rigby comes to Schott from Intermusica, one of the most dynamic UK-based artist management companies, where he worked for ten years. He and Sally Groves will work alongside each other for the first six months of 2014 before he assumes the Creative Director title. ‘After ten extremely happy and fulfilling years managing artists and projects at Intermusica,’ he commented, ‘I am excited to make this new step to become Creative Director Designate at Schott Music Ltd. I have always enjoyed collaborating with Schott's superb team of staff around the world and its exceptional list of composers, so I am very much looking forward to beginning my work with them.’

Schott was founded in Mainz by Bernhard Schott in 1770 and now operates from branches in ten countries, and as well as distributing music from its own imprints, also acts on behalf of more than 120 third-party publishers. Among the companies of the Schott group are Schott Music Panton, Ars Viva, Ernst Eulenburg & Co, Atlantis, Hohner, Fürstner, and Cranz.

Of the major composers of the 20th century, Schott has represented Carl Orff, Igor Stravinsky, Michael Tippett, Paul Hindemith, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Hans Werner Henze and Aribert Reimann.