Orchestrating Success
May 2013
The MSO’s new General Manager
If we needed further confirmation that recent years have not been easy for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, it came earlier this month with the release of their annual report and the news that the organisation had recorded a financial deficit of nearly $800,000 in 2012.
There are significant signs, however, that the Orchestra is heading towards a period of renewed artistic and administrative stability. Alongside the accession of Sir Andrew Davis to the long-vacant post of Chief Conductor, there has also been the recent appointment of a new Managing Director, Canadian André Gremillet.
Gremillet came to the position after a successful tenure as the President and CEO of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. While he had no prior experience of Australia before being interviewed for the post, as a native of Québec, he was quick to recognise the strengths and opportunities that cities and countries of complex cultural origins, of the like to be found in Canada and Australia, share. While the particular cultural and funding circumstances he finds in Melbourne differ markedly from that of New Jersey, there are also challenges that both, indeed, all orchestras in the Western world, also share. These include the ageing of audiences, the decline in subscriber numbers, and the challenge of connecting with young people. Above all, there has been a marked decline in both the funding base for classical music and the political will once that supported it. Indeed, it is equally, and lamentably, rare to see a prominent political leader at a symphony concert whether one is in Australia, America, or the United Kingdom.
In conversation, Gremillet shows no sign of being daunted by these challenges; rather for him they truly represent exciting (albeit also pressing) opportunities. Chief among them he notes is the need to expand the size and scale of the MSO’s philanthropic base which, in comparison with similar orchestras in the United States, is low. This, he believes, is not just about the need to raise money per se. A successful philanthropic campaign is also a sure marker that an arts organisation is successfully connecting with its local community writ large. Ensuring that the orchestra remains competitive with the best in the world means ensuring that the orchestra remains connected to the city it calls home first and foremost. Securing this ongoing sense of community ownership of the MSO, he sees as his most important goal.
For someone who only arrived in November last year, there is no doubting his own sense of ownership. While he is quick to credit his programming team, as well as the work of his immediate predecessor, for the strength of the MSO’s current season, Gremillet nevertheless speaks with true proprietorial enthusiasm about the orchestra’s current offering; particular highlights for him include the return of wunderkind Diego Matheuz to Melbourne as newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor, and the forthcoming Stravinsky Festival (to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the first performance of The Rite of Spring). His passion for what the orchestra does is helped by Gremillet’s own background, richly embedded in the arts. He first trained as a classical pianist, and prior to joining the NJSO, and he also served for four years as President of the internationally-renowned pipe organ building company Casavant Frères.
Aside from promoting its musical achievements, Gremillet is also keen to stress the significant broader economic and cultural benefits that accrue to the city when the orchestra is flourishing. The MSO is a powerful public symbol of, and promotional vehicle for, Melbourne as a world-class city, a city with global ambition and influence. Music is in this respect as powerful a marketing tool as sport. And given Melbournians are at least as passionate about their arts and their sport, we should – he believes – be promoting this aspect of our city at least as hard on the international stage as we do our love for cricket and football.
What will Gremillet consider to be his ultimate marker of success? Well, for an operation as complex as the MSO that inevitably will take many forms, but one in particular, he says, will be when taxi drivers in this city speak to their passengers with the same sense of ownership and pride of their symphony orchestra as to their colleagues in Berlin or New York.
The Rite Stuff: The MSO’s Stravinsky Festival is on August 7, 10 and 13 at 8:00pm. Featuring all three of Stravinsky’s great ballet scores, plus works by other composers inspired by, or who inspired, Stravinsky. Diego Matheuz, conductor
mso.com.au
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