Elisabeth Murdoch

Elisabeth Murdoch may refer to:

See also

Elisabeth Murdoch (businesswoman)

Elisabeth Murdoch /ˈmɜːrdɒk/ (born 22 August 1968) is an Australian television industry and international media executive. She was nonexecutive chairperson of Shine Group, the UK-based TV programme production company she founded in 2001, until the company's parent, her father's 21st Century Fox on 1 January 2015 merged its Shine division with ApolloGlobal Management's Endemol and Core Media production houses, specialising in reality TV.

Biography

Early life

Elisabeth Murdoch was born on 22 August 1968 in Sydney. Her father is Rupert Murdoch and her mother, Anna Murdoch Mann (born 1944). She was named after her grandmother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. She attended schools in New York City and graduated from Vassar College.

Career

She started her career as a manager of program acquisitions at her father's FX Networks, a cable television service based in Los Angeles. Operating as EP Communications, on 22 September 1994 Murdoch and her then husband, Elkin Kwesi Pianim, purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations, KSBW and KSBY, in California on a US$35 million loan secured by her father. Within 18 months, the couple re-organised and re-sold the stations at a $12 million profit.

Elisabeth Murdoch (philanthropist)

Dame Elisabeth Joy, Lady Murdoch AC DBE (née Greene; 8 February 1909 – 5 December 2012) was an Australian philanthropist. She was the wife of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of American international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.

Family

Murdoch was born in Melbourne on 8 February 1909, the third daughter of Marie Grace de Lancey (Forth) and Rupert Greene. Her grandfather, William Henry Greene, was an Irish railway engineer (later one of the three Commissioners of Victorian Railways) who emigrated to Australia and married Fanny, the fourth of the 10 daughters of George Govett. Her mother's ancestors were Scottish and English; one of her maternal great-grandfathers was a lieutenant governor in the West Indies. Elisabeth was educated at St Catherine's School in Toorak, and at Clyde School in Woodend. She married Keith Murdoch, 23 years her senior, in 1928 and inherited the bulk of his fortune when he died in 1952. Apart from Rupert, her children are Janet Calvert-Jones, Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929–2004). At her death, she had 77 direct living descendants (names unknown). Her granddaughter, Elisabeth Murdoch, was prominent in the British business world and was married to Matthew Freud.

Melbourne Recital Centre

Melbourne Recital Centre is a venue for ensemble music in Melbourne, programming and presenting in excess of 450 concerts and events each year across a variety of musical genres - including classical, jazz, popular, cabaret and world music. It is Melbourne's second largest auditorium for classical music (after Hamer Hall in The Arts Centre). It was opened in 2009, as part of the Melbourne Recital Centre and Southbank Theatre complex, and is located on the corner of Southbank Boulevard and Sturt Street in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, Southbank.

Facilities

The centre features two auditoria, the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, and a smaller venue known as the Salon. The former, a "modified shoe box" shaped music venue, is named after Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. It has seating for 1000 on two levels and was designed by Ashton Raggatt McDougall with acoustic and theatre consulting by Arup.

The 135 m² (1,450 sq ft) stage, with optional 51 m² (550 sq ft) extension is designed to accommodate up to 45-65 musicians, making it well suited to chamber music and other small ensemble music. To eliminate noise from the nearby Southbank Boulevard cars and trams, it is surrounded by 250mm of concrete, mounted on 38 steel springs. The interior is lined with Hoop Pine plywood and is designed to give ideal bass response for cello and low brass.