Stuart Dill, a 30-year veteran as an artist manager on Nashville’s Music Row, has been named Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s liaison with the entertainment industry, effective Aug. 4.
Dill will continue to develop and strengthen the strategic partnership between VUMC and the entertainment industry, which includes professionals in music, athletics and performing arts, and will communicate the strength and recent advances of the Medical Center’s health care services and build upon philanthropic interests and involvement with Vanderbilt.
Dill, originally from Mobile, Alabama, and a graduate of The American University in Washington, D.C., has been a resident of Nashville since 1984 and is founder of Dill Management Group. He began his career in Nashville penning comic material for Minnie Pearl, Ray Stevens and Jerry Clower. He has also been involved in organizing several music festivals including WestFest, Texas LIVE and Country Gold and is the co-creator of the upcoming Music & Miracles Superfest.
Over the years Dill has managed artists including Minnie Pearl, Freddy Fender, Dwight Yoakam, Jo Dee Messina, Rodney Crowell, The Wreckers, Sister Hazel, Laura Bell Bundy, Point of Grace, Billy Ray Cyrus, and many others. He also authored the novel, “Murder on Music Row,” that won the Independent Book Publishers (IPPY) Award’s Gold Medal in 2012.
“Nashville’s two most dynamic and well-known industries are health care and music. At VUMC we know and appreciate the numerous important contributions from the entertainment industry that similarly improve our community and quality of life. Together, we have accomplished much and see the opportunity to do even more to benefit Nashville and Middle Tennessee. We are fortunate to have someone of Stuart’s caliber join us as we continue to build upon these relationships with our entertainment industry colleagues,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, M.D., deputy vice chancellor for Health Affairs and CEO of the Vanderbilt Health System.
“Artist management is a ‘contact sport,’” Dill said. “It is about building relationships, growing trust and showing that you really care about the artists you represent. The same holds for the work done in the medical community. It is ultimately about giving excellent care and building relationships and trust with each patient. Basically an artist manager’s work and physician’s work are similar in that sense — we’re in the business of ‘care.’ Working as VUMC’s liaison to the music and entertainment industry is simply an extension of the work I’ve been doing my entire career.”
Dill said that both VUMC and Music Row touch millions of lives, in Nashville, across the country and globally.
“They are both internationally recognized brands that ‘grew up’ in the same neighborhood together. By definition, a true community is a group of people that care for one another. Although one industry is art and the other is science, we are both community members working to transform lives, be it physically or emotionally. To put it simply, we are both working daily to make people feel better. It only makes sense for these two brands, these two communities, already interconnected geographically and philosophically, to continue to work together, very strategically, for the greater good of those we mutually serve.”
Dill has served as chairman of the board of Brentwood Academy, a board member of the T.J. Martell Foundation, and is a longtime member of the CMA, ACM, NARAS and Leadership Music.
He and his wife, Maral Missirian-Dill, have two children, Ani Missirian-Dill, who recently graduated from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, and Ohan Missirian-Dill, a graduate of Centre College.
