Anita Bhalla has been elected its new chair of Town Hall and Symphony Hall Birmingham.

Ms Bhalla, a former senior BBC executive, will assume her post early next year, taking over from Roger Burman CBE, the founding chairman of Town Hall Symphony Hall, who has been in post since 1991.

Performances Birmingham Limited (PBL), the charity that runs THSH said Mr Burman's chairmanship had seen record audiences in the past year, and a thriving community programme.

Anita Bhalla OBE has been a trustee of PBL since 1996 and is also chair of the Creative City Partnership for the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.

A former governor of Birmingham City University and member of the Independent Commission on Social Justice, she has more recently been part of the Birmingham Social Justice Commission, led by the Bishop of Birmingham.

Ms Bhalla was awarded an OBE for her service to Broadcasting and Communities in 2009, and served as High Sheriff of the West Midlands in 2010-2011.

Ms Bhalla said she was looking forward to helping guide PBL through an expected difficult period of public sector funding cuts.

She added: "I am particularly keen to forge even stronger relationships with our artistic partners – including our resident ensembles and artists, such as the CBSO – to ensure that PBL presents a wide and diverse programme of events which reflects the demographics of our great city.

“I would like to pay tribute to Roger Burman for his sterling work as Chairman of PBL over the past two decades, and his leadership of the Board of Trustees."

Mr Burman said: “It has been a privilege to serve Birmingham as chairman of one of the UK’s leading music organisations over the past 22 years.

"We are very proud of the wide range of musicians, orchestras, singers and bands we have brought to the city, the many partners with which we work across Birmingham, the musicians whose careers we have nurtured and the achievements of the tens of thousands of young people involved in our music education and community activities.

"Town Hall and Symphony Hall are at the heart of the city’s cultural life, as well as offering significant economic benefits, and I am proud to have been a part of Birmingham’s cultural renaissance over the last two decades.”

Anita Bhalla will take up her post at the end of February.