The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s musical vision has deserted it just when it needs it most.
By Graham Strahle

ON THE EVE of the most important shake-up in Australia’s orchestral sector since the Nugent Report four years ago, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra could have come out with a more clever 2005 program than it has. At the season launch, CEO Nick Ladd outlined the ASO’s ambitions to extend more widely into the community, yet it is offering a smaller range of concerts next year. Paradoxically, activity is being scaled back precisely in areas it has previously targeted as critically important for developing new audiences: the Al Fresco outdoor concerts reduced from five to two, and the Ultimate Symphonic Spectacular is dropped.

There are five new children’s concerts and the orchestra visits Mt Gambier and Port Lincoln. Also new are three Keys to Music live radio presentations with Graham Abbott; but the Elder Hall series, also presented by Abbott, is shortened to three concerts, and the exploratory Cathedral (nee Studio) Series of old and new music is eliminated.

It is curious what to make of this. The ASO originally intended to undertake a complete overhaul of its concert offerings in readiness for the 2005 launch, but a combination of cost pressures and The Ring ruled this out. What is left is essentially a holding pattern that maintains the orchestra’s core activity of a 12-concert Masters Series; offers another Showtime Series; but fiddles around with other things – perhaps until it knows for certain the results of the Federal Government’s review of orchestras, which are due to be handed down by the end of December.

But it is entirely the wrong time to lose vision. With the ASO’s four-year deficit now running at about $2 million, and The Queensland Orchestra deeply embroiled in a management and artistic crisis, the Federal review just might choose to sweep away under-performing city orchestras and institute a radical alternative. This could be a composite touring orchestra, drawn from players in the ASO, The Queensland Orchestra and the Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, which would spend rotating residencies in each city.

A single touring orchestra might solve some problems but Adelaide would be without a permanent orchestra for much of the year. Immediate flow-on effects would be a contraction of much other concert activity, including chamber music, and a body blow to music teaching. A major part of the State’s cultural life would be torn out.

What does the ASO see for its future? Ladd says his vision for the orchestra is twofold. “The whole idea,” he says of next year’s program, “is a huge focus on young people that has been missing in recent times.” Also being pushed are regional audiences, non-traditional audiences and “people from all walks of life”. He sees programming as important and aims to present “a good variety of high-quality performances” from the traditional repertoire, plus “a few new works”.

Yet the season 2005 brochure is a demure, visionless document. With close-cropped, secret-angle views of players, it seems to hold the orchestra away from view. Brazen catch-cries of “Astonish me” and “Perchance to dream” are gone, and in their place is a bland designer-looking cover that depicts, of all things, the Festival Plaza’s Otto Hajek sculpture. Unloved and deserted, it is hardly the symbol for an orchestra looking to grow in its community profile. In fact, the ASO is looking more northerly for its inspiration. The new Masters Series carries a Scandinavian and Estonian focus next year, with input from chief conductor Arvo Volmer, in his first full year with the orchestra. Unfamiliar much of it is, with composer names such as Uuno Klami, Heino Eller and Eduard Tubin. It is going to be “a real challenge” selling concerts with these composers, admits James Koehne, the ASO’s artistic administrator. But he believes that the earthy, nature-loving traits of this Nordic music will make it appeal to Australian ears. Thankfully, there will also be more familiar works, by Sibelius, Nielsen (his magnificent Symphony No 4, the “Inextinguishable”) and Arvo Part (the luminously beautiful Te Deum and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten).

Volmer explains the Nordic theme: “Every artistic director has added a touch of his personality. Mine is deeply connected with my northern European and Estonian background and my education in St Petersburg, and I hope to bring the best of this to the ASO and to our audiences.” This will depend on the marketing department getting audiences interested in the first place – a difficult task as the department itself needs rebuilding, owing to high staff turnover. Danielle Seagrim, the marketing and development director, resigned just ahead of the orchestra’s season launch on October 12.

Problems for orchestras magnify when the musical vision and wider marketing objectives drift apart, which seems to have happened again with the ASO. Maestro Volmer is clear about what he thinks is needed, saying: “The ASO needs to be a mobile and flexible modern organisation, providing audiences with concerts on the highest level”, while simultaneously finding “... ways to reach our younger audiences more effectively.” He also says: “I see the ASO as the cornerstone of cultural life in SA, as music, being the most abstract of the arts, can speak equally to people of different backgrounds and beliefs.”

"Every artistic director has added a touch of his personality. Mine is deeply connected with my northern European and Estonian background and my education in St Petersburg, and I hope to bring the best of this to the ASO and to our audiences."

Graham Strahle