The prominent arts figure has condemned the SSO board’s decision, arguing that “music has always been political.”

Prominent arts figure Leo Schofield has blasted a decision by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s board not to publicly support the “yes” campaign for the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. Schofield, who served on the Orchestra’s board as the inaugural Chairman from 1996 to 2000, condemned the board in a strongly worded post on Facebook on Wednesday, following the announcement to members of staff earlier that day.

“This is a disgrace. Every significant arts organisation in the country has nailed its colours to the mast, every arts practitioner worth his or her salt, every thinking patron, sponsor, audience member supports change,” Schofield wrote. “The reason the board, supposedly unanimously, has opted for this course is that they don’t want to politicise music. Utter drivel. Music, even in the pursuit of change, has always been political. Great composers, whose music forms the core of the symphonic repertoire, active revolutionaries such as Verdi and Wagner, nationalists like Sibelius, Shostakovich and Britten, recognised that artists need to speak out against injustice. Disgusted at Napoleon’s bellicosity and European power grab, Beethoven struck the name...