Sophie Galaise details sacking as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra managing director following Jayson Gillham decision
Sophie Galaise has revealed the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra board sacked her last week as managing director after it unilaterally overturned the unanimous decision of her executive team to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham following his onstage anti-Israel comments.
The former managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has hit out at her sacking over the sidelining of a pianist who attacked Israel’s conduct in Gaza, declaring that music concerts should be “safe havens” for all Australians and free from political protest.
Sophie Galaise has broken her silence over the controversy that has rocked the country’s oldest orchestra, insisting she and her management team were right to demand audience members be free to listen to music without being subjected to political lectures.
Ms Galaise has revealed that the MSO board sacked her last week after it unilaterally overturned the unanimous decision of her MSO executive team to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham after his onstage anti-Israel comments last month.
The MSO controversy is the latest involving pro-Palestinian activism on stage that has divided the artistic community and angered Jewish patrons and donors. It follows a backlash against the Sydney Theatre Company from patrons and donors last year after three actors wore pro-Palestinian keffiyeh scarfs during a curtain call.
Ms Galaise was the only person the MSO board sacked despite the fact her six-member management team agreed with her that Gillham should not play at a subsequent concert because of his anti-Israel comments, which breached the orchestra’s position of neutrality in the Gaza conflict.
“Why was I sacked? In my opinion it’s not fair,” Ms Galaise told The Australian in her first comments on the controversy.
“It was a disagreement (with the board) but it (my position) was not a mistake. I still believe the MSO should be a platform that is neutral and that focuses on doing good music. It is important to respect other people’s (political) opinion but the MSO should be a safe haven, a place where people can come and listen to great music and know they are going to be safe.”
Ms Galaise said she was exploring legal options after an extraordinary series of events that culminated in her taking the fall for the stunning split between the MSO’s board and its management team.
The 11-member MSO board, which is under pressure to explain its actions, includes chairman David Li, former Qantas chair Margaret Jackson, former Victorian government minister Martin Foley, investment managers Edgar Myer and Farrel Meltzer, former PwC executive Mary Waldron and former ANZ executive Shane Buggle.
The saga began on Sunday, August 11, when pianist Gillham took the stage to perform at Melbourne’s Iwaki Auditorium. He included in his performance a rendition of a piece called Witness which was composed by Connor d’Netto as a tribute to journalists working in Gaza during Israel’s attacks on Hamas in the enclave.
When introducing the piece, Gillham, who did not tell the MSO what he planned to say, alleged that of the reported 113 Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli air strikes during the conflict, “a number of these have been targeted assassinations”, a war crime that is denied by Israel.
Ms Galaise was at home when she was contacted by one of her management team about what Gillham had said. Several members of the 156 people in the audience had subsequently complained to the box office after the performance, while others had emailed their complaints to the MSO including to Ms Galaise herself. She said she could not remember exactly how many complaints the MSO received but described it as a “large number” for a “small audience”. She said they were received ‘by email, by phone calls to the box office, by people complaining at the box office right after the concert and I also received complaints (directly) by email”.
One Jewish audience member emailed the MSO after the performance stating: “I was angry and traumatised after listening to the (pianist’s) speech and the piece which followed. I felt humiliated. There were other Jewish members of the audience present and several of us approached a staff member to make a complaint after the concert. Music should be a refuge in these times for everyone. To alienate Jewish members of the audience to create a political platform during a performance is inappropriate and inexcusable … the MSO should issue a public apology to their subscribers.
“I have been a subscriber to MSO for a number of years and feel this incident will make me feel reluctant to come to further concerts in light of MSO allowing this attack on its patrons.”
On the morning after the concert, Ms Galaise called a full meeting of her management team to discuss what to do. The background to their decision, so far unreported, was that she said the MSO had publicly stated its neutrality on the Gaza conflict in December, and that position had been conveyed to the MSO’s musicians and in a newsletter before Christmas to MSO subscribers.
“We had worked with the board, the management, our musicians and our people to decide what we would be doing in regards to the geopolitical situation in Gaza and that was published last December,” she said.
“And we decided that we are a diverse organisation and that we would focus on doing music and that we would not take sides in the conflict … we would try to remain a safe haven for people who want to hear good music and not be subjected to different personal opinions.”
She said this had been discussed in meetings with the musicians, via meetings with the artistic players’ committee which represents the musicians, so the musicians were aware of the MSO’s stated neutrality on the issue of Gaza.
The MSO’s decision to adopt a neutral position on Gaza was unusual but it reflected the uniquely divisive nature of the issue. The company has chosen to support various political positions in the past including support for the Yes vote in the voice referendum, support for gay marriage and even a concert dedicated to Ukraine immediately after Russia’s invasion of that country.
On the Monday morning after Gillham’s performance, Ms Galaise and her management team discussed how the MSO should respond, and also sought legal advice on the issue.
Gillham had breached the MSO’s publicly stated neutrality on Gaza so it was felt that the orchestra owed an apology to those audience members who were offended.
Ms Galaise said management’s thinking was informed in part by the damaging rift at the STC last year over pro-Palestinian activism on stage, leading to fears of a public backlash, including from Jewish donors. About $8m of the MSO’s roughly $40m budget comes from donations. And the MSO’s partners include Jewish organisations such as the Gandel Foundation and the Besen Family Foundation.
“We have donors that are Jewish and non-Jewish, so it’s a mix,” Ms Galaise said. “They are supportive of the work of the MSO and they did not come forward and request anything but the complaints were really made about the fact that, as an organisation, we had allowed this pianist to speak and take one side.
“In my opinion that was the perception of the people who were complaining. And that is where we said ‘no, it is not okay to have our platform used in such a way – we respect freedom of speech and he is quite entitled to think whatever he thinks – but taking our organisation as a platform to do so without discussing it with us was a challenge’,” she said.
On top of this Gillham was due to perform again on the Thursday night, three days later. Would he repeat the same comments, setting off more complaints, or could an audience member, knowing what he had said previously, disrupt the performance with a counter-political outburst?
Ms Galaise and her management team decided that the safest path was to apologise to the concert audience. The team agreed that the MSO would write to attendees, apologise for Gillham’s remarks and notify them that his subsequent concert appearance had been cancelled. A statement was drafted saying: “The MSO does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views.”
On that Monday evening, Ms Galaise with the backing of her management team sent the apology to Gillham’s audience.
Ms Galaise said she tried to contact two of the most senior board members on that Monday to inform them of the management’s decision but could not make contact.
At 6.41am the following day, she sent an email to all 11 MSO board members informing them of the decision. The MSO’s letter to Gillham’s audience quickly found its way into the public arena and the powerful forces of the pro-Palestinian movement immediately took aim at the organisation.
“We started being bombarded by keyboard warriors and people who have nothing to do with the MSO being quite aggressive with the organisation,” Ms Galaise said. “I received a lot of (pro-Palestinian) hate messages, some about being a woman CEO, about my hairstyle, my accent (Ms Galaise has a French-Canadian background) – they were calling me all sorts of names.”
The union representing the MSO’s musicians, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, said: “The response by the management of the MSO had been disproportionate and is offensive to the principles of artistic expression.”
With the MSO in the crosshairs of pro-Palestinian activists, the MSO board created an instant working committee, including some board members, Ms Galaise and some of her management team, to meet that Tuesday evening to discuss the situation.
The board also hired an external crisis management team to advise it. To Ms Galaise’s amazement, that crisis team suggested to the board that the MSO do an about-face and publicly state that its attempted cancellation of Gillham had been a mistake.
The argument was that if it did not do so, the MSO concert on the Thursday – and future MSO concerts – could be disrupted by pro-Palestinian protests. Ms Galaise said she argued against a reversal because she knew it would “piss off everyone” on all sides and make the MSO look weak and indecisive.
“In my opinion, we had already said ‘Jayson Gillham, you cannot take us hostage’ and now we are going to backflip and apologise?” she said.
The board initially tried to discuss with Gillham’s management whether he could be persuaded to take the stage for the concert on Thursday. But when it became clear that he would not play, the board cancelled the entire concert citing security grounds because audience members might have had to encounter pro-Palestinian protests.
Under the board’s instructions the MSO management team was forced to declare that the attempted cancellation of Gillham’s appearance had been an “error”.
“While the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra maintains that a concert platform is not an appropriate stage for political comment, we acknowledge Jayson’s concerns for those in the Middle East and elsewhere,’ an MSO spokesman said at that time.
Sure enough, the MSO board’s decision to reverse its position pleased pro-Palestinian activists but upset the Jewish community.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said: “The MSO got it right the first time. People attend concerts to relax and appreciate the music, not to be drawn unexpectedly into a political rally. It is wrong for an artist like Mr Gillham to exploit the situation by forcing his audience to listen to his highly questionable political views on a subject about which he has no special knowledge or expertise.”
For Ms Galaise, the board’s decision to overrule the views of not just herself but her entire management team regarding Gillham deepened a rift that had begun to emerge over other issues.
Ms Galaise, who has been the MSO managing director for eight years after a successful career running major music organisations in Australia and Canada, had fallen out with Mr Li. Ms Galaise and Mr Li had differences over the handling of several internal issues. These included an investigation by Al Jazeera in which the network last month aired a piece alleging that Mr Li had hidden past links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and that China had undue influence over the MSO, allegations Mr Li denies.
It was clear, in hindsight, that the controversy over Gillham had further soured relations between the board and Ms Galaise. A week after the controversy, Ms Galaise took a work trip to Singapore for a long-planned and important series of meetings and functions to cement the MSO’s new strategic relationship with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Contrary to reports, Ms Galaise said no-one at the board advised her against taking the trip so close to recent turmoil over the Gillham affair. Ms Galaise said she went to Singapore because it was important for the MSO and she stayed in daily contact with her management team in Melbourne during that time. But on the last night in Singapore, shortly before her flight she received a call from a senior board member asking her to come to a meeting when she returned to Melbourne the following morning.
Ms Galaise was told that the meeting was to further discuss the board’s recent decision to ask Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor minister Peter Garrett to review the MSO and evaluate its policies, procedures and processes, and cover protocols around freedom of speech and artistic expression on stage.
Instead, Ms Galaise said, when she turned up at the meeting she was sacked. “They said they had no faith in me and no trust and so I was terminated,” she said. “It’s been very difficult for me because my reputation is now in tatters. I love the world of music but who would now like to hire me?”
Ms Galaise said she knew that the board’s decision to reverse the cancellation of Gillham was damaging to the MSO’s reputation but she had no idea it would lead to her being sacked. She said it was simply a disagreement between her management team and the board over how the issue should be handled.
Meanwhile the MSO is now at war with Gillham, despite having tried to reconcile with him and despite having sacked Ms Galaise.
Gillham, through his lawyers, has claimed: “The implication that my actions caused safety concerns is unfounded and deeply troubling. It appears to be an attempt to deflect from the real issues at hand and to stigmatise legitimate political expression.”
The MSO’s lawyers Arnold Bloch Leibler have accused Gillham of making “outrageous demands” of the MSO for compensation and other relief, adding “they will never be met.” ABL added that Gillham “abused his position by using an MSO concert to air his political opinions”.
“He did so improperly,” it said. “As was inevitable it caused distress to many members of the audience.”
The strength of the ABL’s latest statement against Gillham’s behaviour takes the MSO’s position on the whole controversy almost a full circle back to the original tough stance for which Ms Galaise had advocated. As she said on Monday: “It begs the question, why was I sacked?”
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