Pianist Canned For Gaza Aside

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has cancelled a performance by an Australian-British pianist because his “personal political views” – made while he introduced a new work dedicated to journalists killed in Gaza – caused “offence and distress”.

Pianist Jayson Gillham made his pro-Palestinian remarks at a recital on Sunday and was scheduled to perform again on Thursday with the MSO at Melbourne’s Town Hall.

On Tuesday, in a strongly worded letter sent to ticket holders who attended Sunday’s recital, Victoria’s flagship orchestra said: “The MSO does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views. Mr Gillham will not be performing in the advertised concert with the MSO this Thursday night at Melbourne Town Hall.’’

As Gillham introduced the new work, Witness, he said: “Over the last 10 months, Israel has killed more than 100 Palestinian journalists. A number of these have been targeted assassinations of prominent journalists as they were travelling in marked press vehicles or wearing their press jackets. The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world. In addition to the role of journalists who bear witness, the word witness in Arabic is ‘shaheed’, which also means martyr.”

The MSO letter said the orchestra was “at no point made aware of the content of the remarks Mr Gillham was intending to make’’ and “they were made completely without authority”.

“The MSO understands that his remarks have caused offence and distress and offers a sincere apology,’’ it said.

The music piece embroiled in the controversy is a new work by composer Connor D’Netto and was a late ­addition to the program.

The MSO said “Witness was accepted for performance at the request of Mr Gillham on the basis that it was a short meditative piece’’. The orchestra criticised the pianist’s statements as “an intrusion of personal political views on what should have been a morning focused on a program of works for solo piano’’.

Gillham has performed with Australia’s leading orchestras, the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic and in June he appeared at a fundraising concert at Manchester Cathedral for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.

He is active on X, and this week reposted a message from a Palestinian politician that was highly critical of Israel’s bombing “and massacre” at the al-Tabin school shelter that, according to Hamas, killed about 100 Palestinians. On Monday on X, Gillham called for “nothing less than total decolon­isation” of Gaza.

Thursday’s MSO performance will go ahead under the baton of Jen Winley, but without Gillham, who is planning to comment on his cancellation via a PR agent.

The orchestra said it agreed to include Witness in Sunday’s concert because this was in line with its values of respect, collaboration and diversity. Those same values were “why we’ve acted as a result of the unauthorised statements … We seek for every one of our performances to be a welcome and safe place for all.’’

Gillham’s cancellation was heavily criticised on X.