Fancy a RM130,000 a month paycheck? This is what the conductor of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) is being paid.
And according to Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, sustaining the conductor and the mostly foreign musicians is a waste of Petronas funds.
The DAP secretary-general, who returned to Parliament after nearly a decade in political wilderness, raised this issue when debating on the royal address at the Dewan Rakyat today.
The opposition politician revealed that the cost to maintain the musicians is a whopping RM3.5 million a month."As much as 95 percent of the foreign musicians are paid between RM16,000 and RM28,000 a month and given two months paid leave every year. The conductor is paid RM130,000 a month while the (conductor's) assistant is paid RM50,000 a month," he said.
"For the past 10 years since it was established, this orchestra has 'swallowed' a total of RM500 million," he added.
Lim also claimed that MPO's former resident conductor, Malaysian Ooi Chean See, had resigned after being denied a more significant role.
"How can Petronas waste so much money but not benefit local musicians? While local musicians are neglected, Petronas spends so much money to entertain foreigners, especially from Europe. This is the attitude that caused the people to be so angry with Barisan Nasional," he added.
More details at www.malaysiakini.com
9 comments:
The MPO is populated by a majority of foreigners because Malaysia doesn't have the educational infrastructure in place to supply the orchestra with local musicians of the calibre that a modern international symphony orchestra demands of its players. In Europe and America the training of orchestral musicians begins at junior school level with the provision of instrumental and class music lessons. At individual school and county level there are youth orchestras that provide early training in the skills of orchestral playing and its possible to graduate from these to national level youth orchestras. In addition there are, in the UK for example, at least four music colleges of international repute for the training of orchestral and other professional musicians. Since its inception the MPO has worked hard to develop its educational outreach programme. The outreach programme provides workshops, masterclasses, private music lessons as well as a mentoring programme for young Malaysian musicians. Young Malaysians have also benefited from the recent formation of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra which provides the beginnings of the kind of orchestral training that will eventually enable more Malaysians to join the MPO. Malaysian composers have also benfited from the establishment of the MPO. Under the direction of Kevin Field the orchestra began a programme of workshops for Malaysian composers, resulting in performances of their works and the commissioning of further works. Kevin also initiated an international composing competition that placed Malaysia on the international circuit for such events. Orchestral musicians are among the most highly trained and skilled people on the planet. They need phenomenal sight reading skills, be able to play music of all periods and styles and play it to the highest standards all the time. And they need to continue to do this throughout their careers. The MPO is the only organisation in Malaysia that has made a start in developing these skills among Malaysian musicians while at the same time providing all Malaysians with the opportunity to hear live professional performances of orchestral music that are equal to the best in the world. This combination of sole national provider of orchestral training and professional orchestral concerts seems quite a good deal at the prices quoted. Bear in mind that in the UK the BBC alone maintains four symphony orchestras of international standing while London itself has many more, each with annual performing and outreach programmes equal to that of the solitary MPO.
Yes, but what is the cost of the 4 orchestras that the BBC maintains? Whereas the MPO appears to be a place for Govt -subsidized provision of elitist entertainment, or maybe, in line with Dr Mahathir's "MalaysiaBoleh!" to show that we in Malaysia can do as well as or better than the West.
In other words, millions of struggling Malaysian rakyat of all races, stand to lose the petroleum subsidies while Petronas pays foreign virtuosos(conductos and performers) vast sums to gratify a tiny elite of UMNO and Barisan Nasional families. Thus Nero fiddled while Rome burned! "Let the rabble eat cake", cried Marie Antoinette, while the people starved for want of bread. The hubris, insensitivity and putrid posturing of the rich and famous in our country,sickens one; the saving grace is the magnificent empathy that has always existed within the ordinary people for generations. Oh, send that expensive conductor packing pronto, and let us look for less expensive options. If, 20 years ago, Naxos could cut the price of classical CD's by half by using perfectly competent East European performers/orchestras, why can't we similarly economize. If all else fails, close down the MPO and start stocking up on CD.s.
The charge of elitism doesn't really stick and the idea that the MPO caters to the 'rich and famous' bears no serious examination. MPO ticket prices start from as little as RM8.50 (a concessionary price) and RM10 without a concession. These prices are for the Family concerts on Sunday afternoons. For other concerts, tickets start at RM17 and RM21.65 depending on the concert series. Students can buy a ticket for any concert and any seat in the DFP for RM10. If you want to attend an open rehearsal it will cost you nothing as a student and RM5 otherwise. Nobody therefore is excluded from attending MPO concerts on the basis of cost, although the strict dress code may put some off.
Yes, we can send the MPO conductor 'packing' and seek cheaper alternatives. But as with most other things in life, you get what you pay for. If Malaysia wants to have a 'world class' orchestra then it will have to pay world prices. If however Malaysians are prepared to settle for the merely 'competent' then so be it. As for the cost of the BBC orchestras, I don't have the figures but I do know that the BBC spends annually 35 million pounds on its classical music radio channel alone: that's RM210,000,000annually and this doesn't necessarily include the costs of its four orchestras.
You may be well read, inherent in the better things in life, but I'm smart enough to see through your bourgeois sensibilities.
We are a third world nation not for want or need but for extravagant wants of your class.
The needs on the other hand is the people and class of citizens living in subpar poverty level deprived of funds and bare basic necessities like hospitals and schools that can be set up at a fraction of the cost of the entire MPO's annual income.
Do not even compare GB to us because the standard of living is on an unequal foot. People can be gardeners there and still aford a decent life. Here people who are sweepers can barely afford 2 meals a day. Therefore, yes, we should get what we pay for ala cheaper alternative because these things are trivial when you have seen the suffering of the common man. I work in KLCC, and it is not the common street person who even bothers about this concerts save some charity even they have giving free seats to orphanages(well that is the least they can do after all), but well to do people and foreigners working here. Did I tell you that Petronas has a substantial bulk of foreigners working for them? Seems like they are sucking us dry and we are the ones being fooled to pander to their needs and their exorbitant price tags. Whats left at the end of the day due to the over-depndency to them? Recession, loss of national reserves, inequality in income class and last but not least, nothing. What our country so far has provenm from its track record is this, dependency leads to more dependency.
I wrote classical concert reviews, and a weekly music column for the Sunday Star for 15 years (1980s through mid-1990s), and was active in Kuala Lumpur's amateur music performing scene from the 1960s and 1970s, culminating my performing career as a professional flautist with the MetroManila Symphony Orchestra in the late 1970s, so I should be in a good position to comment about the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
I am one of those bitterly disappointed with the MPO. Setting up a professional orchestra in Kuala Lumpur was a great idea, and to start it off with almost 100 percent foreign players may have been acceptable (wags in KL called the MPO the Mostly Putih Orchestra), but a decade on, and still the orchestra is overwhelmingly foreign (though with more non-White players, the orchestra is still the Mostly Pendatang Orchestra), and not even a Malaysian conductor at the helm, is all together too much to bear.
A symphony orchestra, anywhere in the world, reflects city, and/or NATIONAL aspirations, and that means basing the orchestra on LOCAL talents.
It maybe true that Malaysian classical musicians are "not up to the standards" of a "world class" professional orchestra, but who are we kidding when we have a "Malaysian" Philharmonic which is most certainly NOT Malaysian. Call it the Petronas Philharmonic. But, not, surely, the Malaysian Philharmonic.
Money can always BUY the best the world can offer. If that is the philosophy of Petronas, the MPO's hundreds of millions of dollars would have been better spent importing foreign politicians to give Malaysia a truly world-class parliament! But no right thinking person would ever dream of such an idiotic idea. We get the politicians that we have in Malaysia, the good, and the mostly terrible (just look at your live television to see how the YB, from both sides of the aisle, behave!)
But yet, Petronas thought it was doing right by "Malaysia" to buy a mostly foreign orchestra, which has remained mostly foreign for over a decade. Yes, I know that the orchestra has in recent years attempted to train a young Malaysian orchestra, organised competitions for local composers, and occasionally gives concerts at Old Folks Homes, but that hardly makes up for the obvious fact that what Malaysia needs, perhaps even wants, is a MALAYSIAN Philharmonic Orchestra, warts and all. And, as it grows in its technical and musical competence, so too will national pride in our truly Malaysian orchestra.
The smart thing for Petronas to have done was to have seeded a Malaysian orchestra with foreign players (for example, there is the National Symphony, or the Penang Symphony Orchestra which was actually quite good when I last reviewed them in Kuala Lumpur in the early 1990s), and in that way raise Malaysian performing standards. And, as the Malaysians players grew in the self-confidence as instrumentalists and interpreters of serious music, the contract of the foreign players would be allowed to lapse.
When I played professionally with the Metro Manila Symphony Orchestra, way back in the late 1970s, I was the ONLY non-Filipino in the orchestra! The orchestra had lost its star principal flautist to work overseas, and I had just arrived after having finished training with the Emil Opava, principal flute of the Minnesota Orchestra, and came at the "right time" to fill an "urgent" need. And as soon (5 or 6 months)as the orchestra (whose patron was Mdm Imelda Marcos) found a suitable replacement, I took my leave, and headed to Northern Philippines where I was researching what Mdm Marcos' husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, was doing to the tribal people in the Cordillera mountains!
This is what is meant by NATIONALISM in classical music, where the orchestras, conductors, local serious music composers, and the players themselves, are all imbued with a sense of national purpose, and destiny, and they collectively contribute to national cultural heritage and pride.
Unfortunately, almost non of the words I have just written above characterise the "Malaysian" Philharmonic Orchestra. It is almost a mercenary musical outfit where foreigners are paid huge salaries, to play mostly foreign music, to an audience comprising mainly foreigners (expatriates) and their Malaysian friends, and a few like yours truly who genuinely like Classical Music and who has been involved in developing the scene from the 1960s when I first joined the Kuala Lumpur Symphony Orchestra, through the 1980s and 1990s writing for the Sunday Star, to the present when, at my age, I only occasionally pick up my instruments in a vain attempt to persuade my children to carry on the "family tradition."
Make no mistake, the MPO is a good orchestra. It just simply is not a Malaysian orchestra, something we Malaysians can proudly call OUR VERY OWN.
It is NOT too late for Petronas to do the right thing.
First, appoint a Malaysian permanent conductor whose brief has to be to start replacing the foreign players with Malaysian musicians. I accept that the "high" standards the the MPO currently attains may fall (slightly), but that is the price we as a nation must be willing to pay to build up our own cultural resources which, in the not too distant future, will then put Malaysia on the world's concert stages with an orchestra all Malaysians, and the rest of the world, will instantly recognize as being genuinely Malaysian.
Richard Dorall
I think David and Hanteckoon are really missing the point in this argument.
It is absolutely important to maintain support for the arts and arts education.
Education and the fostering of young Malaysian talent are the primary benefits of the MPO that Albinoni is trying to highlight.
There are many other areas in which Petronas is squandering the rakyat's money- but the MPO is something that we have to maintain as an investment in our children's artistic future.
Don't get me wrong- I'm not an elitist, bourgeois (can barely spell that word), snooty-fallooty, neoconservative capitalist-
I am however, an artist, an educator, musician and a concerned rakyat.
As a strong supporter of PR and hater of BN, I am very disturbed that the arts are being used as an issue to highlight BN's corruption-
The infrastructure of the MPO, is something the (potentially) new PR government should actively work with to enrich the cultural life of every Malaysian citizen.
Education and culture is of utmost importance for our younger generation- musical education fosters discipline, hard work, creativity and most importantly, expression; which ultimately leads to freedom of expression- something that we Malaysians have been deprived.
We must be careful with what we choose to demonize in our tactics to criticize the BN- please do not perpetuate a culture of ignorance.
We must not sing the song of freedom by strangling a mockingbird !!!
The first post that claimed that the reason MPO musicians are all foreign is because Malaysia can't produce good musicians is ridiculous. Even if sufficiently good musical education doesn't exist IN the country, that only means the MPO is then failing to recruit Malaysian musicians who were educated overseas, of whom there are many.
The same situation holds in science (i.e. lousy education at the secondary school and university levels) so by Albinoni's argument, Malaysian universities should also be full of foreign professors.
Dear bloggers, I fail to understand how you all see culture, humanities, arts & music as having a nationality (puzzling). most Malaysians educated overseas try their very best to stay there, especially artists and humanists. I met many in my years in the US, and I've met many here who grabbed the first chance they had to leave and work overseas. It's unnecessary to look into the reasons for this being so, just consider the argument we are having... so sad to think we are attacking the one and only serious orchestra in our country that can play at a real professional (international or local is the same) level. If anything, we should be wondering how we could get more MPO's to be established and community orchestras to be started. Why is only the government paying for it? why not the private sector too? after all, the cultural life of our city/country/estate is the responsibility of everyone, not just the monkeys we elect to wear suits and attend absurd meetings for the rest of their lifes... Yes, I agree, the salaries sound exhorbitant to me, but if we haven't paid attention to the arts & humanities for decades (in fact, never) its impossible to magically 'build up' our cultural patrimony in 10 or 20 years. As has been suggested in previous postings by intelligent people, these build up has to start from the bottom of the ladder, primary school at the utmost latest. It would be a matter of decades before this situation changes. I have been to the MPO a good many times, every time they play a piece I happen to like and I have the time, expenses and right frame of mind. 90% of the audience is sadly not Malaysian, but that is not what worries me the most. It worries me that the population that goes there is not young students, thinkers, artists, politicians, reporters, athletes, academicians, the intellectual side of the county. In my humble opinion this says more about our own mentality than of the MPO's 'agenda'. I see in this the same sad truth, that we and our government have little or no interest in arts, humanities & culture in general. There is almost no infrastructure to support these 'commodities of the bourgeois' (as you made it sound). This is clearly reflected in the education system we go through since young.
It is just plain sad that we fail to see how important these areas (arts & humanities) are in the development of a nation. Even more so in our case since we are a developing nation (just another term for a third world country with high aspirations). If you think that classical, baroque, modern, romantic, musica da camara, early music, pygmie polyphony, minimalistic, opera, jazz, world, flamenco, choral, organ, kora music, mbira music, andean pipes, bambucos, russian jewish songs, sufi music, sambas, tangos, mambos salsas, progressive and symphonic rock, and much more music is exclusively for a small elite it's obvious that (a) you have not been to the MPO. If you have, you slept through the entire concert each time or you were thinking of something else, not the music. (b) your schooling did not teach you how to appreciate arts and you're probably happy with your collection of top 40 pop CD's and being able to quote Tchaikovsky's or Mozart 's or any other big name composer in front of your friends in mildly intellectual conversations or event gala dinners. (c) in your particular case the MPO has failed to reach you, and how sad that you yourself spend so much money in taxes each year to maintain an orchestra (the number you quoted in stupefaction!) but you don't even attempt to attend its concerts. Do in your life something that needs no creativity please, for the sake of the generations to come. Finally, I'm absolutely certain that(d)never in your life have you ever sat down and listened to a Mahler symphony, any of them or a Piazzolla tango. I believe it is your kind of mentality that the people behind the MPO set out to change. I just sincerely hope that you are not an educator in our country, for our children's sake... If you couldn't have that yourself, why do you want to deprive your children and people after you of that?
We rant about how much we're having to pay as a nation for bringing literature, art, philosophy, theater, cinema & music into our lives, not processed Hollywood radio american & european pop garbage and r&b and the Bond string quartet with techno drums and voice alla' Ennya. Instead we should be wandering where all the money goes to and why is it not being spent in schools, universities, libraries, community cultural projects, research institutes, scholarship funding, orchestras, theatres, halls, auditoriums, stadiums, sport centers, publishing houses, galerias, and other elementary delightful needs of a community instead of being squandered in a nonsense of capitalism & consumption of luxuries and status quo and social status that the past generations left us with and to bear with.
..following Albinoni's arguments our universities ARE full of foreigners, so are the train stations, airports, bangsar clubs and city pubs, beaches, malls, klcc, sunway, local colleges and universities, and so are most of the cities of the world today that have airports and a tv signal. What makes me think that I have more right over the square meter of land where I stand now in the planet than any of them 'foreigners'? xenophobic? haven't we all ever heard of globalization before? or is this getting too metaphysical and demanding for you? attacking people of elitist, capitalist, bourgeois (sorry, couldn't stand the chance to tease your spelling ability! don't take it personal, its just a discussion) classist superiority? how dare you if you don't know who he is! What a harsh, unfriendly, unethical, unfair and terrible misjudgement of people. It's like calling someone a Nazi just because he/she was born in Germany!
Gamelan. I love your point too. Albinoni and Richard, I'm with you in the fight!
The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra had better do something fast to make itself more acceptable to Malaysians otherwise if there is a change of government it will be in serious trouble.
Hundreds of millions of Petronas dollars have been spent on this mainly foreign orchestra, and the states where oil is produced, Terengganu, Sarawak and Sabah have the largest numbers of absolute poor citizens in this country, people who would rather have roads, schools, and economic assistance, than knowing small numbers of people in Kuala Lumpur are enjoying the likes of Mozart, Mahler and Stravinsky!
Already the 5 per cent oil revenue paid back to the states (as Wang Ehsan) is being questioned, and the figure of 20 per cent of oil revenue to be returned to the producing states is being seriously proposed. If Petronas has to pay four times more to these states, and not to forget the demands that Petronas finance new infrastructure projects like the Second Penang Bridge, I fear there will simply not be enough money for the kind of extravagance the MPO has been enjoying these past over 10 years.
The crunch may come in a matter of months (if we are to believe what the political blogs are telling us, and the main stream media is so busy trying to deny), or even sooner if the impoverished rakyat in those oil producing states suddenly realise that monies that could have gone to improving their human condition, has instead been spent subsidising mostty foreigners performing for the sake of the literati few in Kuala Lumpur!
The MPO does not exist in a cultural vacuum, existing in isolated splendor in the ivory towers of the Dewan Filharmonik. If the orchestra paid for itself as a commercial enterprise, this would not be such a big issue. But the fact of the matter is that the National Oil Company (PETRONAS) is SUBSIDISING the orchestra to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That makes the orchestra an acceptable target for political discourse, whether we like it or not.
If the MPO does not undertake a crash crisis management exercise, appoint a Malaysian conductor, start announcing plans to “Malaysianise,” and make itself more visible to ordinary Malaysians with a much more aggressive community outreach programme, I am afraid that the orchestra would be better advised to start practising Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony!
I remember decades ago, when the (then) magnificent Philippine Cultural Centre on reclaimed land in Manila Bay was built at the behest of Mdm Imelda Marcos, she was asked about the tens of thousands of squatters living around the PCC, people who could never afford the price of a ticket to enter the concert hall, and she replied in her most imperious tone of voice: “It (the building) will inspire them!” Shades of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake!” Likewise, just who is being “inspired” by the MPO is the question we must ask, and honestly answer?
I hope and pray that the MPO management realises that these are dangerous times for an Imelda Marcos-type response to the legitimate questions being asked over the vast subsidies being paid out so that the few in Kuala Lumpur, like this writer, can enjoy the masterpieces of the Western Classical Music Traditions.
Richard Dorall
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