Music Center Arts Official Going on Leave

Michael Newton, president of the Los Angeles Music Center’s Performing Arts Council, said Wednesday that he will take a medical leave starting Monday.

Newton’s two- to three-month absence will come during the performing arts center’s critical fund-raising drive.

The council is in the midst of its most ambitious drive to date, an effort to raise $9.5 million in operating funds for the arts center by June 30.

The council is the umbrella organization that coordinates policy and raises funds for the Music Center’s various performing arts groups, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Center Theater Group, the Joffrey Ballet and the Music Center Opera Assn.

Assuming the post of acting president during Newton’s leave will be Harry Hufford, former chief administrative officer for Los Angeles County and currently chief administrative officer of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm. Hufford will remain with the firm while assuming the arts council position.

“I’ll be around and available to Harry,” Newton said, “but we don’t want the council (fund-raising drive) to lose any momentum.” Newton, 52, is to undergo cancer treatment. His short-term departure comes a week after Ernest Fleischmann, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, announced that he is leaving to join the Paris Opera staff as general administrator and artistic director.

Newton has been with the Performing Arts Council for seven years. Earlier, he was president of New York’s American Council for the Arts.