Australian festival is killed off, founder emigrates

Australian festival is killed off, founder emigrates

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norman lebrecht

August 06, 2014

The Hobart Baroque Festival, one of the few cultural highlights on the island of Tasmania, has been cancelled for last of state funding.

Festival founder Leo Schofield said: ‘You know, Tasmania gets left off the map on a Commonwealth Games swimsuit and there’s a furore. We were trying to put it back on the map, culturally.’ He’s planning to leave the state.

 

leo schofield

Parting message from Leo:

Torrid day in Tassie.

Have reluctantly pulled the plug on Hobart Baroque.

Rather than deliver a half-baked program Jarrod and I decided not to do one at all.

Former Premier Lara Giddings acknowledged that we’d done two ‘on the smell of an oily rag’. Despite that they were both triumphs. We felt we needed to move on from oily rags and presented a three-year plan to the State Government to build Hobart Baroque into a world event but vision is in short supply in Tasmania.

Heading home to Sydney soon.

Thanks to all for sensational support.

Leo x

Comments

  • 2K says:

    Stop by the Sydney Con when you get back Leo and let’s talk.

  • RW2013 says:

    Commiserations from Berlin…

  • Peter Lovett says:

    This is very disappointing but not surprising. With rare exceptions the politicians of Tasmania have very little vision and less understanding of the role of the arts in society. They are happy to bask in the reflected glory of David Walsh and MONA but will do nothing to support and extend that to other areas. The Hobart Baroque Festival was ideal for the state given its small size and excellent venues for the kind of music it entailed. The economic rationalists have succeeded again in scoring a home goal.

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