Organisational management, especially when it comes to large entities, has little to recommend it. Arrange the schedules. Pamper sponsors and behave simperingly. Ensure a diet of pills to null the embarrassment. Mind the assets and fret over the brand. Sigh over ledgers and order spreadsheets.
When it comes to the classical music industry, all of the above apply. Performers have to tart up, add to their appearance with deodorised glory, hold their instruments suggestively (“I play with promise”), their photos and images circulated in desperation for ticket sales. While politics has a habit of finding its discordant way into the ensemble, the modern performer’s views tend to be heavily circumscribed. Brands come first; shred your conscience before getting to the rehearsal and performance.
When it comes to that particular issue, the management in the classics music industry is unmatched in its cravenness. While those contracted in the industry are told to maintain a front of apolitical coldness, the reaction from the companies has suggested otherwise.
In the wake of Ukraine’s invasion by Russian forces in February 2022, a purging of engagements, contracts and agreements were made against a number of Russian musical luminaries. The soprano Anna Netrebko, to take one example, was crudely sacked by New York City’s Metropolitan Opera for not expressly denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin. This took place despite the pressure on Netrebko to publicly condemn the invasion, which she did.
In August 2023, Netrebko filed a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Opera in the US District Court in Manhattan, seeking US$360,000 in damages for lost performance and rehearsal fees. According to a statement from the soprano’s management, “the Met and Peter Gelb have used Anna Netrebko as a scapegoat in the campaign to distance themselves from Russia and to support Ukraine”. A year later, US District Judge Analisa Nadine Torres issued a ruling dismissing the soprano’s claims of defamation, breach of contract and discrimination because of nationality, but permitted the issue of gender discrimination to go ahead.
With Israel’s savage campaign in Gaza, one supplemented with an increasingly brutal operation in the West Bank, artists are again facing the muzzle and the lash. Drawing attention to the plight of Palestinians or the devastation wrought by the Israel Defence Forces has been placed on the naughty list.
Pianist Jayson Gillham, showing every intention of being naughty, decided to test the waters of such an injunction on 11 August. At the Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne, he performed a recital which featured “Witness,” a piece by Connor D’Netto, intended by the composer to “bear witness, and to not forget” the horrors unfolding across the globe. Prior to performing the solo piece, Gillham, as he outlines in a statement, “provided context about its dedication to journalists in Gaza stating factual information about the deaths of Palestinian journalists”.
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra took firm issue with the move, informing Gillham on 12 August that he would not be permitted to perform at a concert scheduled for 15 August. Two days later, the MSO re-invited the pianist to perform subject to new conditions not present in the original contract. In a statement published on their website, the MSO claimed that “safety concerns” lay at the root of the matter.
Gillham proved plucky, making a number of requests to the MSO, among them a public apology — something the organisation had promised prior to publishing its public statement — along with an affirmation of an artist’s right to speak freely, a measure of compensation, commissioning a piano concerto by a Palestinian composer and a donation to the Edward Said National Conservatory in Palestine. His central argument was that conduct by the MSO constituted “direct discrimination of political belief or activity” protected by Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act 2010 and the Commonwealth’s Fair Work Act 2009.
The reply to the demands came in an 30 August letter, penned by a partner from the firm Arnold Bloch Leibler. ABL, while specialising in the legal fields of taxation and commerce, has become a notable gun for hire to those targeting critics of Israeli policy. The veteran journalist and activist, Mary Kostakidis, is one such prominent target, accused by the Zionist Federation of Australia for sharing, according to the federation’s chief executive Alon Cassuto, “irresponsible and dangerous” posts on the X platform. She is currently battling a formal complaint before the Australian Human Rights Commission alleging racial discrimination.
With that record in mind, it was unsurprising what the letter written on behalf of the MSO went on to say. The “outrageous demands” for compensation “and other relief” would “never be met.” Gillham had “abused his position by using an MSO concert to air his political opinions.” (Rather good of ABL to admit that Gillham had been expressing political views, the very sort protected by equal opportunity legislation.) More than that, he had done so “improperly”, causing “inevitable […] distress to many members of the audience.” No names are given, they of the offended, distressed classes tending to be spectral in variety.
In his statement of 1 September, Gillham expressed the fairly uncontroversial view that, as an artist, he had not only a right, but a responsibility in shedding light “on important issues. The factual statement I made about the plight of Palestinian journalists is backed by reputable sources and aligns with international law”.
With such conduct, the MSO has revealed the normal pattern such entities assume when confronted with a threat to the brand. How do we neutralise the threat by inflicting the necessary damage demanded by funders, supporters and lobbyists? How do we salvage the corporate image by being sufficiently hypocritical with a sufficient degree of false principle?
Themes, in that strategy, are common. Mention an unnamed group of offended types who find political expression, especially the sort that does not square with theirs, unsavoury. Focus the attention on the advocate or exerciser of free speech as irresponsible, an agent of chaos and disorder. It’s not that the organisation is against free speech, merely that it be exercised on its own, contractually caged terms.
More importantly, the Gillham-MSO affair reveals an all too obvious point: art is politics, and such bodies as the MSO have shown what brand of politics they are all too ready to approve.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
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