Cafe Society: Orchestral manoeuvres with the TSO’s new CEO Caroline Sharpen

Arts leader Caroline Sharpen says a childhood epiphany at a TSO concert sealed her fate.

The TSO's new CEO Caroline Sharpen at the Grand Chancellor Hotel Atrium. Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

A LIFE-CHANGING experience awaited Caroline Sharpen when she entered Hobart’s Odeon Theatre to attend her first Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concert. The seven-year-old was on a school excursion to hear a mixed program of works.

“Hearing a full, live orchestra playing something I knew how to play on the piano was an unforgettable moment that shaped my life,” says the new TSO chief executive.

“My hair was blown back completely because they played a reduction of the theme of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and I knew how to play that.

“When you are so young, seeing something of that scale and size in Tassie really makes an impression. I knew I had to have this as part of my life from that moment onwards.”

After 20 years away, Caroline recently returned to Hobart to take up the leadership baton. She is thrilled to be home.

“I’ve always felt homesick,” says the eighth-generation Tasmanian. “It’s just something that’s in your blood and it never leaves.”

Trained in classical piano from the age of five, Caroline’s first dream was to become a concert pianist. After graduating from the University of Tasmania’s Conservatorium of Music, she moved to Sydney to start her Masters at that city’s conservatorium.

A painful moment of truth confronted her and she pulled out of the course after a week.

“At that point I realised I wasn’t quite as talented as a lot of the wonderful musicians in the TSO,” she says.

“The big opportunities wouldn’t have come my way. I didn’t have that small percentage of talent on top that the truly great players do.”

She turned to arts management, spending the next decade at Musica Viva, Australia’s oldest independent professional performing arts organisation, where her talent for making magic out of lean resources developed.

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She also spent a year in Washington completing a Fellowship in Arts Management at the Kennedy Center and went on to do a Masters of Business.

Six years ago she launched a cultural management consultancy in Sydney, working with clients including the TSO. Which brings us to her new job, which was advertised internationally.

“The moment I heard about it I felt absolutely compelled to throw my hat in the ring,” she says when we meet at the Hotel Grand Chancellor.

Sitting on leather armchairs in the Atrium Bar, where TSO patrons mingle before performances in the adjoining Federation Concert Hall, we talk about Caroline’s vision for shepherding the orchestra.

“The mission is to be a great orchestra of international significance but primarily an orchestra that is in and of Tasmania,” she says.

“I think that’s an area we can really explore. There are Booker Prize-winning authors in our midst, incredible film makers, photographers, sound artists et cetera … What’s the art we can create that says something about who we are?

“We will be looking at opportunities through three prisms, asking how do we break new ground, what’s going to bring people to see us because no one else is doing it, and how do we generate income as a result of those things.”

Supporting new work and developing composing talent through a composers’ academy partnership with the UTAS conservatorium will be one objective.

“If we are not adding to the repertoire, history will judge us as there will be a gap,” says Caroline.

While symphony orchestras are intrinsically traditional, Tasmania has never been about the status quo, and that, she says, creates an interesting synergy.

“Tasmania has always been about people standing up with a point of view, rattling cages and protesting… In the TSO, it means always being challenged to think a bit differently and stretch boundaries.”

She says the state’s only major performing arts company — now in its 71st year — has a duty of care to smaller arts enterprises.

“Finding ways to build capacity [by sharing knowledge and expertise] strengthens us all.”

She pays tribute to the superb talent of orchestra members and to her predecessor.

“The TSO is so well placed in no small part due to [former managing director] Nicholas Heyward’s leadership over the last 17 years. He has seen it through some challenging times, including existential threats … and potential downsizing of the orchestra from 47 to 36 players.”

She relishes the community’s embrace of its orchestra and eagerly awaits the first major outings of the year, Symphony Under the Stars.

The concerts will be held at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in Hobart on February 16 and Launceston’s City Park on February 23. Both free events are fully booked.