Concord-company Boosey & Hawkes has announced a major leadership transition effective in 2026.

The organization revealed that Janis Susskind OBE will conclude her tenure as Managing Director in June 2026, following a 46-year career with the company. In her stead, Senior Vice President Steven Lankenau will become President on Jan. 1, 2026; he will assume full leadership of global operations on July 1, 2026.

Susskind joined Boosey & Hawkes in 1980 and has served as Managing Director since 2012. Early in her career, she helped secure publishing agreements with Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Steve Reich, and John Adams, and also played a central role in Boosey & Hawkes’s 2003 transition from public to private ownership.

She also led the company to tripling its new-music revenues and broadening its contemporary roster to include Louis Andriessen, Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Henryk Górecki, Karl Jenkins, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, and Mark-Anthony Turnage, among others. She also oversaw the stewardship of major 20th-century estates, including Bartók, Britten, Prokofieff, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Bernstein.
In 2015, she led efforts to publish Stravinsky’s rediscovered “Funeral Song” (1909).

Finally, she was at the helm in 2019 when Concord acquired Sikorski Music Publishing, expanding the company’s catalog to include Shostakovich, Prokofieff, Khachaturian, Schnittke, Kancheli, Weinberg, and Gubaidulina, as well as contemporary composers such as Lera Auerbach.

Meanwhile, Lankenau has led international campaigns that expanded Boosey & Hawkes’s global reach, including the “Leonard Bernstein at 100” centenary, which generated over 5,700 performances and events worldwide. He also has overseen the signings of composers such as Oscar Bettison, Courtney Bryan, David T. Little, Gabriela Ortiz, Sean Shepherd, Ana Sokolović, and Jeanine Tesori, and continues to work closely with the estates of Aaron Copland, Alberto Ginastera, and Claude Vivier.

“It has been an immense privilege to work alongside Janis Susskind, whose leadership, mentorship, and friendship have been a highlight of my career. Her legacy will be deeply felt as we approach Boosey & Hawkes’s centenary in 2030,” said Lankenau.

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