Melbourne CEO tried to topple chairman
OrchestrasAn investigation by the Australian Financial Review reveals shady goings on at the trioubled Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. According to the report, smears were spread by CEO Sophie Galaise about board chair Daniel Li, alleging unsubstantiated links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Li had previously called Galaise to account before the board over unauthorised spending of quarter of a million Aussie dollars on a consultant, former Sydney Symphony chief Rory Jeffes, in order to secure a European tour for the orchestra. The tour never happened. If the spending was, as Li says, beyond Galaise’s authority, repayment may be requested.
Report here.
….a consultant to help organise a European tour? What? Ever heard of agents?? How many staff does MSO have and what do they do all day? The Board really should get a grip and forget the vanity and do a proper job.
With all this exciting daily intrigue, who needs music? It’s got all the makings of a soap opera!
The allegations against the board chair were made in the Al Jazeera program 101 East by several sources within the Melbourne Symphony, who had first hand knowledge of the issues. Galaise facilitated the dealings of the chairman for years.
Two threads to the Eastwest program. One thread was the internal grumblings about over-indulgence by MSO of Mr Li as a donor. But the other stuff that he was somehow wielding foreign interference on behalf of the Chinese state were based on two “experts” who definitely had axes to grind. Starting point was that Li played violin in a Chinese military music ensemble in 1971 (there was a photo of him – inevitably also a piano accordionist in the picture) and (by the NZ “expert” that “Chinese New Year” was some kind of Chinese communist conspiracy which has now been suppressed by adoption of the terminology “Lunar new year.”
WHY would you want to take a bunch of viola players, through the security checkpoints? Just think of the potential amount of contraband seized.
It’s easy to blame the management but the players have known for eight years (and perhaps longer given Galaise’s equally absurd prior reign at QSO) how incompetent she was, and have endured any number of sufferings, and yet seemingly did nothing until it was far, far too late. Any claim that they were powerless to act to instigate change is now transparently false. A shame nobody had the guts to put her in her place sooner. Now the entire company pays the price, including the players. It’s difficult to see how this series of debacles won’t affect private and government funding for years to come.
Firstly the chairman’s name is David Li, not Daniel.
Secondly Galaise should hang her head in shame blowing that much money on Jeffes. If the Garrett/KPMG review is allowed to look deeply god knows what else they’ll find.