Brian Rudman: Philharmonia's begging bowl the city's shame

The organisational meltdown at the Auckland Philharmonia, graphically outlined in Saturday's Weekend Herald, will have shocked anyone concerned for the cultural well-being of the region.

Hopefully the revelations have acted as a wake-up call to professed friends of the arts in local and central Government who are quick to sing the orchestra's praises but shamefully slow to give it the financial support it deserves.

After 25 years as the mainstay of Auckland musical life, the country's hardest-working band needs a break. And by that I mean something more tangible than sugar-coated words and advice from consultants.

The "strictly confidential" report into governance issues by independent consultant Graeme Nahkies is a depressing portrait of dysfunction across the organisation. It says "the AP would seem to be in very poor shape to adapt and innovate and to become sustainable in the way some of the world's leading orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra have been able".

The organisational problems, he says, are on the main internally rather than externally generated and reflect the pressures of a small co-operative enterprise attempting to progress from an owner-managed organisation where everyone can have a say to a larger, professionally managed organisation under professional managers.

Central to the breakdown is the clash between a group of founder-players unwilling, after 25 years, to surrender their managerial control, and a musical director wanting to control and lift musical standards.

What is not addressed is the backdrop of poverty against which this tragedy is being played out. After 25 years of shabby treatment from Wellington funding agencies and Auckland local government, it's hardly a surprise that some players want to hang on to what they have, meagre that it is, rather than risk some greater good which could see them out on their ear.

No one could argue against the need for introducing modern management structures, or for striving for excellence in playing standards. But equally important is the need to reward the excellence being sought. And when the best you can pay a rank-and-file player is $35,000, and in a situation where there have been no pay rises in eight years, that is not happening.

Last November, the Wellington-based New Zealand Symphony Orchestra went cap in hand to the Government for another $1.5 million on top of the $10 million it already receives, to balance its books.

Judith Tizard, Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, provided the NZSO a "letter of comfort", hinting that help would be at hand in this year's Budget.

It escaped no one's attention at the Auckland Philharmonia that the $1.5 million top-up the NZSO seems set to receive is equivalent to the full annual grant the AP receives from the Government funding agency Creative New Zealand.

This unbalanced division of Government funds between the country's two senior orchestras is a long-standing grievance at the Auckland orchestra, and rightly so. On whatever criteria you judge them, the Wellington band is not worth seven or eight times its Auckland counterpart.

Ticket sales for the NZSO last year were 112,000, the AP, 60,000. Turnover for the NZSO was $14.4 million, AP, $6.3 million.

To stay afloat, the AP has to try much harder. It has to traipse around the myriad Auckland local authorities with the begging bowl. Other than Auckland City, which provides $300,000, the pickings are thin, Manukau City coming second with just $30,000 and the rest even less. Wooden spoon goes to Waitakere City, home of 7.2 per cent of the AP audience, which pays nothing.

Biggest supporter, indeed, is the audience, which provides $4.7 million of the AP's $6.3 million annual turnover - which is greater than NZSO's box office take of $4.3 million.

The AP's ability to stand on its own two feet is remarkable. Only 25 per cent of its turnover comes from public funding - both local and central - compared to the NZSO's 70 per cent, Melbourne Symphony's 60 per cent, Sydney Symphony's 45 per cent and Tasmania Symphony's 81 per cent.

In Auckland, the AP is the senior orchestra in terms of call-outs and audience numbers. Without it, we would be back to the dark ages of recorded music to accompany ballet and opera and state visits from the Wellington-based band.