We now know that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) spent $689,000 on legal costs in 2024. A further $954,000 financed governance restructuring and redundancy payouts. With regret, one wonders how much of these sums might otherwise have been spent on making music.

For the most part, the expenses are tied to the Gillham affair. On August 11 last year, during a recital organised by the MSO, the pianist Jayson Gillham gave the premiere of Connor D’Netto’s Witness, before which he declared: “Israel has killed more than one hundred Palestinian journalists … in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world.”