Laurelle is a French Canadian from Saskatchewan, a former violinist and pianist, and advocate for French rights and education in Canada. In 1977 she was Executive Director and founding member of the Association for Young Francophones of Saskatchewan (AJF). During her tenure, she launched the annual ‘Drama Festival’, coined the term ‘fransaskois(e)’, and was co-producer of the first historic festival “On S’Garoche à Batoche” in July 1979, televised for national French TV (Société Radio-Canada). After a year of travel in Europe and Africa, Laurelle turned her attention to the performing arts.

In 1983, she joined General Arts Management, Inc. (GAMI) in Toronto, became VP in 1986, and purchased GAMI a year later representing some of Canada’s and the worlds most respected musicians, ie: Jon Vickers, James Campbell, Moe Koffman, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1991, GAMI merged with American Company, Simonds Management, based in Connecticut to form GAMI/Simonds, LLC.

Laurelle was President of the Canadian Association of Artists' Managers (CAAM) from 1986-1990, board member of CINARS from 1986-1996, board member of NAPAMA from 2010-2014, Secretary of NAPAMA 2014-2016, and conference co-chair of the Arts Midwest Conference in 2019.

Director

Simonds Management was founded by Don Verdery, in 1982, promoting the careers of classical and world-music artists in the United States and Europe. Prior to the formal founding of Simonds Management, Don Verdery spent seven years as manager/agent for the Cobble Mountain Band, a country-rock group from the Berkshires that toured throughout the Northeast, Midwest and Southwest. During the 80's the Simonds Management roster included solo artists, classical ensembles and dance companies, including guitarist/composer Benjamin Verdery, flamenco guitarist Paco Peña and the legendary Chilean ensemble Inti-Illimani. In addition to managing artists, from 1986 to 1991, Verdery was the Executive Producer of the guitar series sponsored by the D'Addario Foundation for the Performing Arts which presented concerts in New York City, Washington, DC, Milwaukee and San Francisco.

Beginning in 1996 Don began offering his USA visa services to the performing arts community in general and today has over 50 clients from all corners of the globe. www.gamisimondsvisa.com

Don’s areas of responsibilities are the company’s immigration and tax service, marketing, contracts, itineraries, road management, artist tech and publicity.