What is it about the arts in Australia that makes it so hard to hire the right people in management and then keep them there?
Artistic Directors Leanne Benjamin at Queensland Ballet, Jo Davies at Opera Australia, Lee Lewis at Queensland Theatre and Ruth Mackenzie at the Adelaide Festival have all abruptly exited stage left, along with Sophie Galaise, Managing Director at Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And who can keep up with the problems the MSO is going through at the moment? Cancellation of an artist, a vote of no-confidence, legal undertakings. It’s entirely possible that by the time this edition of Limelight appears, the police will have found the body of Harold Holt in one of the double-bass cases at the back of Hamer Hall.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay/Pexels
The Jayson Gillham Episode is a perfect example of how to turn a storm in a teacup into a massive hurricane that eventually blows your own Managing Director out the door. Gillham was performing in the 400-seat Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne when he made his comments about the alleged killing of Palestinian journalists prior to playing a composition...
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Gilham was not ‘an employee of the MSO’ but a guest artist, and his ‘comments’ about the ‘alleged’ killing of Palestinian journalists were made in the context of a brief spoken introduction to a work dedicated by the composer to those journalists. (In the same context he gave a similar introduction to a work by another composer dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.) By the same logic, should we cancel performances by a string quartet who gave a spoken introduction to Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet (dedicated ‘to the victims of fascism and war’) or Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 (which commemorates the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on the World Trade Centre? Or a conductor who dedicated a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony (for example) to the victims of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Of course Gilliam is within his rights to exercise his freedom of speech in this way on the concert platform, no matter who is paying for it; the only exception to this would be if he had indulged in hate speech or vilification, or otherwise broken the law, which he did not. The MSO management on the other hand had no right to cancel the rest of his concert series for introducing the work as he did, and he has rightly taken legal action against theme for breach of contract.
The tragedy of war is bad enough (Ukraine, Middle East, South Sudan etc) but it would seem some folk like to start their own “WAR OF WORDS”. I agree with Mr Bower’s music instances of Shostakovich, Reich, Tchaikovsky – they are rarely verbally introduced at performances. I occasionally go to concerts to listen to MUSIC! If I want political, religious or other opinion, I’ll read a newspaper!
As a former musician and Director on the Board in the MSO, blimey, retirement rocks!