Bum note: The predictable, avoidable MSO mess that was months in the making

Months before Australia’s oldest professional orchestra became engulfed in a political furore over the war in Gaza, relationships between key players in the MSO were strained to the point of dysfunction.

The breakdown in trust between departing director Sophie Galaise, the board and the orchestra provide the untold backstory of how the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra became the latest cultural institution to be torn apart by social forces unleashed by the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Galaise, managing director for the past eight years, resigned on Monday after the board lost confidence in her capacity to lead the organisation beyond a crisis she created by cancelling the performance of a renowned pianist over his on-stage comments about Gaza.

But the genesis of the crisis is an administrative cold war that has been raging for months inside the MSO.

Multiple sources with detailed knowledge of events agreed to speak to this masthead, on the condition of confidentiality, to explain how a world-class orchestra now finds itself without a managing director and under external review.

MSO managing director Sophie Galaise.Credit: Laura Manariti

They observed that the seeds of mistrust between Galaise and some MSO directors were sown two months ago when company chairman David Li questioned payments totalling nearly $300,000 she authorised to Sydney production company, Firefly Productions.

Galaise’s explanation was that the monthly payments were reasonably made over several years to secure the international relations expertise of Rory Jeffes, a former managing director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and chief executive of Opera Australia. Despite this, the board referred the consultancy to KordaMentha for review.

That review was abruptly discontinued without passing judgment on the Firefly payments when Galaise’s tenure ended.

Instead, Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor government minister Peter Garrett has been commissioned to conduct a more thorough examination of the MSO protocols and policies that regulate artistic expression.

At the time pianist Jayson Gillham took the stage of Melbourne’s Iwaki Auditorium on Sunday, August 11 and accused Israel of assassinating journalists in Gaza, Galaise’s relationships within MSO had already broken down.

The directors did not learn of the decision to cancel Gillham’s second planned concert in Melbourne until two days later, when an email popped up on their phones announcing the decision and a statement Galaise intended to release.

An exchange of text messages between board members over breakfast confirmed that none of them had prior warning of the decision. They then set about trying to undo the damage they believed Galaise caused by making Gillham a martyr and exposing the MSO to the ire of pro-Palestinian activists.

Galaise, in response to questions from this masthead about her lack of consultation with the board, cited “logistical issues” in being able to contact them. She said the decision to refer the Firefly consultancy to external review surprised her but did not impact on her relationship with MSO directors.

An MSO spokesperson said: “The Board acknowledges a number of complex issues that remain a focus for the MSO. We are making good progress in finalising the terms of the external review and will provide an update as appropriate.”

Gillham’s performance, which included a rendition of Witness, a piano piece composed by Connor d’Netto as a tribute to journalists reporting from Gaza on Israel’s siege and bombardment of the occupied territory, did not provoke an angry response from Jewish community groups, members of Jewish families whose financial support is vital to the MSO, or members of the audience.

Peter Garrett will lead an independent review into the MSO.Credit: Getty Images

An MSO staff member sitting in the audience was taken aback by the comments and immediately left the auditorium to alert management in case of any backlash. But it was not until Tuesday, when the cancellation of Gillham’s second performance was publicly reported, that it arrived. It was led by Palestinian supporters incensed that Gillham had been banished from the stage for making what they consider an inarguable political point.

While Israel denies it deliberately targets journalists, international groups such as the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists claim that more than 100 have been killed by IDF strikes in Gaza. Gillham this week expressed surprise that what he said on stage caused a fuss. “I feel that what I said about the piece was quite prosaic,” he told ABC Radio’s Raf Epstein.

It should have surprised no one when Gillham prefaced his performance of Witness with a pointed reflection about Gaza.

Gillham has filled his social media with comments on the conflict and, by his own admission, his conflicted role as a performer in the 10 months since Israel declared war on Hamas in response to its October 7 atrocities.

Writing in the early weeks of the conflict, he reflected: “How can I remain an apolitical artist? Pressing some keys, bowing and smiling while nobody in my industry talks about this great crime happening before our eyes? I want to scream. But my profession demands decorum, to be gracious at all times.”

Pianist Jayson Gillham.Credit: Internet

In the months that followed he called for an end to Zionism, apartheid and colonialism. “Nothing else will suffice,” he wrote on March 22. Two weeks later he declared on Instagram: “If you are friends with friends of Israel, you need new friends.”

In May, he posted a picture of himself wearing a keffiyeh and decrying “the leaders of the axis of genocide” and anyone who won’t publicly denounce them. After performing at a fundraiser for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund in June, he wrote: “We must not let them get away with this! We must resist this evil with every fibre of our being.”

Gillham didn’t flag what he was going to say with the MSO at his concert, but no one told him not to mention the war either. The MSO board, believing that Galaise overreacted about the comments, stepped in to correct what it saw as one of a series of misjudgments.

The MSO’s board includes former Qantas chair Margaret Jackson, former Victorian government minister Martin Foley and Edgar Myer, a regulatory lawyer now immersed in his family’s extensive investment and philanthropic activities. Its directors sought the advice of external crisis managers and opened discussions with Gillham’s management in the hope of convincing him to take the stage for his planned, second performance on August 15.

The orchestra rehearsed two repertoires – one featuring Gillham and one without – in case he agreed to play.

Once it became clear that Gillham was not prepared to return, the MSO board issued a statement describing the decision to cancel his involvement as an error. It also announced that the entire second show would no longer go ahead.

This was based on security advice provided by Emily O’Brien, an arts industry risk and safety consultant, that the dangers of a concert audience having to navigate an expected protest outside Melbourne’s Town Hall were too great.

Throughout these days, Galaise’s relationship with the board became even more distant.

She didn’t heed the advice of directors to prioritise the crisis in Melbourne and instead flew to Canberra for a series of meetings with government and other performing arts stakeholders.

A week later, she flew to Singapore to join a large MSO delegation on a trip that had been planned over several years to cement the orchestra’s strategic relationship with its Malaysian counterpart. Although the MSO board acknowledged the importance of the trip, some directors urged her to remain at home to deal with the turmoil still raging.

By that stage, the orchestra musicians had released a letter expressing no confidence in the MSO senior management and calling for Galaise and chief operating officer Guy Ross to stand down pending an independent investigation. Ross remains in his job and currently reports to Richard Wigley, an orchestral leader brought in to provide strategic advice to the management team.

The orchestra in its letter made clear that, although the episode surrounding Gillham brought serious issues within the MSO to a head, their loss of confidence in Galaise was a “culmination of years of unresolved concerns, ongoing mismanagement, and a consistent decline in workplace culture.”

Wigley released a statement on Thursday acknowledging MSO had been under scrutiny on multiple fronts, but urging supporters to stick with them.

“It has been a challenging time and we thank you for your continued support of our musicians and staff,” he wrote.

“I want to acknowledge the impact these consistent, negative headlines and stories are having on everyone who loves this Orchestra.

“I expect we will continue to see the MSO feature in the press … please know that we are taking all possible steps to safeguard the reputation of the MSO.”

A concern that still rankles deep within the orchestra pit, despite four years passing since the onset of the pandemic, is the manner in which Galaise and the board chairman who appointed her, Michael Ullmer, shuttered the MSO and stood down the entire orchestra in April 2020 to protect the financial position of the company.

Throughout Melbourne’s COVID lockdowns, while select “essential” management staff continued to receive 80 per cent of their salaries, the musicians who put on the show were forced to live off the federal government’s JobKeeper scheme. In contrast, Sydney Symphony Orchestra musicians and administrative staff agreed to a 30 per cent pay cut and chief executive Emma Dunch took a 40 per cent hit.

Having lost the confidence of her board and the orchestra, Galaise this week had little choice but to quit. Meanwhile, lawyers for Gillham and the MSO are still searching for a settlement to a thoroughly predictable and avoidable mess.

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