MUSIC CENTER COUNCIL FILLS TOP POSITIONS

The Music Center’s Performing Arts Council moved Thursday to fill a management void that has strained administrative operations at the downtown Los Angeles complex for four months.

The council’s board of governors named a new chairman and created a new management post to oversee development activities, resident-company relations and fund-raising activities at the performing arts center. The council is the chief policy-making arm of the center.

Named chairman was prominent Los Angeles attorney F. Daniel Frost, who is to assume his new two-year position on July 1, the council said.

Named to the new post of executive vice president was long-time council volunteer, board member and key fund-raiser Esther Wachtell. Her appointment is effective April 1.

“It strengthens the organization of the Performing Arts Council to do this,” said Harry Hufford, acting council president.

Wachtell will report to Hufford until a permanent replacement is named for former President Michael Newton, who resigned earlier this month.

Hufford said Wachtell has been performing the duties of the new post for some time as a volunteer, and the council decided that it was time to turn her job into a paid professional position. Hufford would not reveal Wachtell’s new salary.

“As we’re going through the current processes over there, it was time to do that and put that in place,” Hufford said. “She’s been fantastic all along, and this helps to crystallize the evolving organization.”

Wachtell has served as vice chairman of the Music Center Unified Fund Campaign, and has been a member of the council’s board of governors since 1974. In her new position, she will remain as a board member but give up a position on the board’s executive committee.

Frost, currently vice chairman of the council, has been especially active in the day-to-day operations of the center since December, when former council President Michael Newton left on an extended medical leave.

Earlier this month, Newton formally resigned his position, and the council has started a search for his replacement.

Newton’s position was taken over temporarily by Hufford, who has had to balance his duties as acting president of the council with his job as chief administrative officer of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm.

Hufford had no comment on the search for a new president.