The New York Times in her Miami Beach apartment when a headline and photo stopped her cold.
“You son of a bitch,” she said.
Sobol, managing director of IMG Artists, one of the world’s premier classical music talent agencies, was looking at a picture of the agency’s 47-year-old chairman, Barrett Wissman, in a story titled, “Hedge Fund Executive Guilty of Securities Fraud.” Wissman, a Texas financier and classical pianist, had purchased IMG Artists for $7.5 million in July 2003, two months after the death of the previous owner, legendary sports impresario Mark McCormack. Originally a division of parent company IMG, which also operated businesses in sports, media and modeling, IMG Artists was an international firm with an A-list roster that included conductor André Previn, pianist Evgeny Kissin, violinist Itzhak Perlman, soprano Renée Fleming and flutist James Galway. But McCormack’s unexpected death had thrown the company’s future into jeopardy. Wissman, a fashionab