High Steaks: Home of the Arts boss Yarmila Alfonzetti busts myth that Queenslanders are bogans
Arts boss Yarmila Alfonzetti has slammed the stereotype of Queenslanders as uncultured bogans, revealing the state has Australia's best music education. WELCOME TO HIGH STEAKS
Yarmila Alfonzetti has a myth to bust.
The head of culture at the Gold Coast’s Home of the Arts (HOTA) and the former boss of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra has heard all the rumours and assumptions about Queensland being full of bogans who couldn’t find culture if they were standing in a yoghurt factory, but she doesn’t buy it for a second.
“I will refute you there, kind sir,” she laughs over lunch at the iconic Gold Coast restaurant Moo Moo for The Sunday Mail’s High Steaks.
“I will wash your mouth out with soap.”
So is that reputation of Queenslanders as beer-guzzling, croc-wrestling, singlet-wearing bogans a misplaced stereotype?
“Absolutely, 100 per cent,” she says.
“We do need to change that reputation because you know what? In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“Queensland has the best music education program of any state, so music education here is of the highest standard and is throughout the schooling system, which is something Queenslanders should celebrate.
“I took the Queensland Symphony Orchestra to Mount Isa, and you’ve got people who’ve had a really top-class, primary and high school music education.
“So in fact, I find most people here are actually well-versed in the arts.
“My job is not to be concerned that I don’t have a knowledgeable, intelligent audience - my job is to actually rise to their needs and expectations and make sure that I have a balanced program where there’s something for everyone.”
She says Queensland’s enviable lifestyle probably contributes to the unfair preconception that Gold Coasters, and Queenslanders in general, have got better things to do than go to an art gallery or theatre.
“If you live in Canberra, you probably are spending more time in the theatre because in the middle of the winter, what the hell else are you going to do? It’s freezing cold,” she reasons.
“What the arts here competes with is the amazing natural environment, so sometimes if we’re struggling to sell something, I do think, well, “is this just the Gold Coast’s way of telling me that the weather’s been great this week and they all want to spend the day on the beach”?”
So with the imaginary elephant ushered out of the room, we can move on to the mouth-watering steaks at one of the Gold Coast’s best-known restaurants, and settle in to take a fascinating peak behind the curtain of sophisticated showbiz.
From dealing with some of the most highly-strung (pardon the pun) musical artists on the planet, Alfonzetti acknowledges you have to be “a little weird” to operate in that space and that was a trait that kicked in pretty early.
“I remember when I was at the Conservatorium High School (A Sydney school specialising in music) and I was in a particular group of friends who were basically obsessed with classical music,” she says.
“I mean, how crazy? We were a bunch of 15-year-olds and all we wanted to talk about was Mozart and Mahler and Brahms and Beethoven.
“We were the losers of the teenage world.”
The love affair with classical music had started much earlier, thanks to her father Ludwig, a Czechoslovakian who had been in the Vienna Boys Choir as a youngster before migrating to Australia where he later became a sculptor, married a Kiwi and raised six children, Alfonzetti being the oldest.
The family started taking shape in Sydney, but eventually moved out to the Blue Mountains.
“I had a very special childhood,” recalls Alfonzetti.
“We didn’t have a lot of money by any means, but money for art was always prioritised. Money to see theatre, money to see concerts, was always a priority.
“Our parents very much taught us the value of experiences of education and of art and culture.”
With the seeds planted at a young age, it is no surprise that Alfonzetti would end up forging a career in the arts, though she perhaps went against the grain by wanting to work behind the scenes instead of on the stage.
“Everybody at the conservatorium of music wants to be a performer, but it’s very competitive, very difficult,” she says.
“You learn very early on when you don’t have the chops.
“And let’s face it, I was never going to be a performer.
“But I am one of those people that is a great audience member … I buy tickets, I go and see a lot.
“And I really appreciate people who have skills and expertise that they have honed over many years.
“So I did a Bachelor of Music majoring in musicology, but then I very quickly realised that my skillset isn’t to perform so I very quickly shifted to music history, music criticism and music analysis.”
Since graduating, her CV would surely have to read as one of the most impressive in the nation when it comes to the arts, with 25 years of experience at some of the country’s most iconic brands and venues.
Queensland is lucky to have her. She has worked at the Sydney Opera House as the head of classical music, she returned to the Sydney conservatorium of music working as head of external relations, she was CEO of the Sydney Youth Orchestra, she’s worked at the Perth International Arts Festival and was CEO of State Opera South Australia, all while raising three kids with her husband of 35 years Greg, now a retired lawyer whose secret superpower is a talent for classical guitar.
Alfonzetti was lured to Queensland in 2022 where she took up the post of CEO for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
She held the “dream job” for two years before being lured to the bright lights and salty sea breezes of the Gold Coast to take on the role of head of arts and culture for the newly-formed Experience Gold Coast entity, a merger of the city’s tourism, events and cultural platforms.
She is now 18 months into that post.
But if the CEO gig at the Queensland Symphony Orchestra was a dream job, why the change?
Especially when the Gold Coast has long been considered a cultural wasteland within the even bigger cultural wasteland of Queensland, despite Alfonzetti’s aforementioned record straightening.
“The Queensland Symphony Orchestra was a dream job, absolutely,” she admits.
“I won’t deny that, but look, there’s the lure of the Gold Coast, which we can’t deny.
“To be honest, I would very happily still be there now, but when Experience Gold Coast presented me with this opportunity, it’s just hard to resist no matter what dream job you’re in.
“There is something about,being in a place that makes your heart sing, which is why we’re all here on the Gold Coast. It’s beautiful.”
It’s not all about having a nice view though and Alfonzetti also believes in the substance of her current assignment.
“Experience Gold Coast is very ambitious,” she says.
“It’s got a big canvas… it’s a big business, and what was put in front of me, which is an opportunity to run HOTA and do lots of programming and as well to take into a portfolio, a gallery, which is new for me, so that’s super interesting.
“Add in a restaurant and a bar and an outdoor stage and all the things, it’s like a chocolate box there really.”
We segue from chocolates to jelly beans and I tell an anecdote of recent High Steaks subject and entertainment industry guru Tony Cochrane who recalled a touring band requesting a jar of jelly beans with all the red ones removed.
Surely the highbrow world of classical music and opera is above such immature behaviour?
Nope.
“I have got one million experiences exactly like that,” Alfonzetti says.
“When I worked at Sydney Opera House, we had classical music artists who trashed their hotel rooms.
“And I don’t judge because what would any of us be like if you had been on the road for two years and you never saw people who set you straight or remembered who you really are and you didn’t have your partner and your kids.
“It happens everywhere.”
She recalls the logistical nightmare of bringing a leading European orchestra to Sydney.
“Probably my biggest project at the Sydney Opera House was bringing out the Berlin Philharmonic to Australia for the first time ever,” she says.
“It was a multimillion-euro endeavour.
“We chartered an entire Lufthansa flight from Berlin - we had to change the entire plane to business class for the orchestra, silver service the entire journey, and all their instruments, which are worth millions of dollars each and they were made in 1753 and all of this, so when that freight landed, there was only a limited amount of time that it could be exposed to the air before it was transported in temperature-controlled trucks to the venue and we were changing traffic lights blocking off streets in Sydney.”
Can she see a time when a similar logistical exercise is needed to transport world-famous orchestra equipment across the Story Bridge or even down the Gold Coast’s infamous M1 on the way to HOTA?
Watch this space.
REVIEW
STEAK: Striploin wagyu, leaf salad and sauteed mushrooms
VENUE: Moo Moo wine bar + grill, Broadbeach
SCORE: 9/10
Originally published as High Steaks: Home of the Arts boss Yarmila Alfonzetti busts myth that Queenslanders are bogans
Crack squad to hunt down WorkCover cheats costing $250k
