Flamboyant company boss Mr. Jonathan Crawley has enlisted the help of one of classical music's greatest names to bring the curtain down at the Bermuda Insurance Symposium later this month.

During his end-of-conference speech, Mr. Crawley will posthumously appoint German opera composer Richard Wagner as the honorary composer to the ART market, an acronym which, in the insurance world, stands for alternative risk transfer.

As part of the confirmation process, his monologue will be interspersed with the sounds of extracts from Wagner's operas to identify various segments of the ART market, in which Bermuda leads the world.

The music of more conventional composers will also be played to identify the conventional market, said Mr. Crawley, whose last-day speech is entitled `The State of the ART'.

"The advent of the ART market is the only event of the last 25 years of any historical importance which has not been commemorated by any great artist accrediting any great work of art. No building has been built, no piece of music has been composed, no poetry written and no picture painted,'' said Mr.

Crawley.

"I have therefore decided this will be the first speech given by anybody on an insurance subject, as far as I know, which will be punctuated by the sound of music.'' Mr. Crawley, the head of Sphere Drake Underwriting Management (Bermuda), has developed a reputation as an entertaining speaker with an unusual delivery who often eschews microphones in favour of the natural sound of his booming voice.

His speech takes place between 11 a.m. and 11.45 a.m. on Friday, May 28, at Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort and will formally mark the end of the formal side of the symposium before that afternoon's eagerly-awaited golf tournament gets underway.

By yesterday afternoon, about 370 attendees had signed up for the symposium, which is being held from May 25-28 at Marriott's. Organisers expect a full complement of approximately 500 delegates by the start of the conference, which is the first to be put on by Bermuda's insurance industry, in conjunction with Government.

The symposium will centre around nine sessions on every aspect of the ART market, at which some of the industry's leading figures from Bermuda and overseas will give differing views on current topics.

Apart from the educational benefits, Mr. Crawley said the symposium would give Bermuda invaluable exposure in the increasingly competitive world of insurance.

He added: "Provided that the event is done as well as Bermuda's insurance industry is accustomed to performing then Bermuda will get an added tier of recognition as an insurance and reinsurance centre of unqualified infrastructural excellence and political and economic stability.'' Mr. Crawley said the joint effort of the private and public sectors in putting on the symposium is indicative of what he called the "excellent'' working relationship which exists between the industry and Bermuda's Government.

"You certainly wouldn't see the London market jointly hosting an insurance conference or symposium of this nature, '' he said.