Nicholas Snowman, innovative arts administrator who oversaw the South Bank, the Pompidou Centre and Glyndebourne – obituary

• Nicholas Snowman, who has died aged 78, was probably the most influential and divisive British arts administrator of the past 50 years; he co-founded two contemporary music ensembles, the London Sinfonietta and the Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris, transformed and opened up the South Bank Centre, and was briefly general director of Glyndebourne Opera until the black-tie-and-picnic set could no longer stomach this devout Francophile’s revolutionary fervour.