MPO’s mission: To gather local talent.
Fact: Local talent is insufficient.
It is because we have not had such an institution in the past. Let the young have access to it, let them be nurtured, that they may be the heirs of the MPO. I fear that even they will lose that opportunity if the MPO is disbanded.

How can amateurs train or nurture to improve young talent to rise to a professional level? MPO’s effort and success in nurturing local talent I assure you is light years beyond what local instructors can hope to achieve. The MPO is equipped to do it, and are doing it. Let them.

For those who think that they are only for the government, expatriates and other elite, think again. Mana ada orang melayu (government) yang menghadiri konsert mereka?
It is that not enough Malaysians have the awareness or interest to attend their concerts. THAT is sad, because they are here for Malaysians, not for expatriates. They are here for our awareness, our facility, our education.

The MPO gives enough priority to allow Malaysians in their ranks. But they must maintain their international standard and reputation, if at least for their students. Just because they are named Malaysian doesn’t mean they have to adopt Malaysian Tidak-Apa attitude too! We must learn from them, not they behave like us.

Sad that Malaysians still want to be ignorant and be instigated by politicians. Yet I applaud the MPO for their effort and fortitude.

If you go to most orchestras in the world they are comprised of people from all diferent backgroungs and all different cultures.
Also, I have never heard of a noteworthy musician coming out of Malaysia.
Please share the names of any artists that have been trained in Malaysia. Is there any training of western music in Malaysia? Maybe the orchestra is geared for the “serious classical music listener”

He has the talent – arts and musical incline, however he did not have the opportunity to harness it as he is a kampung boy and living a moderate life. It did strike to me, that there may be millions of the other children just like him, but due to their similar circumstances they are not able to do anything much about it, and end up just being a fan!

I was researching on MPO in understanding their “business” and looking at ways to help them to do a better job at it.

It is so unfortunate that we do not APPRECIATE our own people, but isn’t that common! We allow outside cultures(music to the way we manage) to influence ours which I am afraid one day we will loose our Malaysian identity not only from musical aspects, and our ways of life. We should just take the GOOD and leave the ones that do not agree with our culture – but then again this is subjective.

And the funny thing is that this organisation likes to hire CEO who are foreigners. It should be CEO local ( I believe we have plenty of this), higher foreigners talent pool that we are lacking and take advantage of it by transfer of knowledge etc.

Petronas could do a lot more by offering scholarships to deserving loca talents and also make MPO concerts more accessible to public. Right now I am very worried about empty seats and increased patronage of foreigners instead of locals as I observe being a regular patron of DFP. They have done good job so far with generous student prices (I watched London Symphony last year and paid only RM 30 which is practically a steal!) and free organ recitals, but more needs to be done.

Flaws aside, the MPO has been a blessing from Heavens for local classical music enthusiasts. The concerts of Shostakovich, Mahler, Bruckner, Stravinsky and Bartok has nothing been short of world class compared with NYPO and even BPO. That makes us even the envy of Singaporean classical enthusiasts. However I am very worried when Petronas cease to make profits when our local oil supply runs out or if Pakatan Rakyat forms the govt, such “luxury” maybe short-lived.

It’s a pity also since NSO and KLPac doesn’t have adventurous repertoire as MPO does. NSO is content of playing Malay pops while KLPac doesn’t have the technical level to tackle Mahler, Stravinsky or Bartok. I’m afraid should MPO cease to exist, the Malaysian classical music scene would be thrown back to Dark Ages.

He worked tirelessly, through day and night, occasionally stopping for food and water. He ate very little and slept even less.

But his devotion to his art left him little time to worry about life’s practicalities. Which is why, late one afternoon, he suddenly had to face his landlord and the daunting task of coming up with the six months’ worth of rent that he still owed.

“Just give me another week,” he pleaded. “I’m on the verge of something great.”

But his landlord wasn’t convinced.
“Absolutely not. That’s what you said last week. You’re not getting a free ride any longer.”

“Just think of it as an investment. Some day, when I’m rich and famous, this small crawl-space will be worth a fortune. People will peer into this disgusting hole, and in whispered tones they’ll say, ‘Bob used to paint here’.”

“Look,” the landlord said, “just pay your rent now, or they’ll be able to say it tomorrow morning.”

So riddle me this. Just how do we put a value on the arts? How do we judge its worth? Is there some quantifiable component by which we can gauge success or failure? Do such notions even matter?

Consider the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the recent revelations as to its cost.

Given the number of heated arguments that I have wittingly been embroiled in over the last couple of weeks, I think it’s safe to say that I stand among a mere handful in my belief that the RM3.5 million spent every month is justified.

To call it a waste is symbolic of the chronic and deep-rooted disdain that we have, in some ways encouraged, towards the expression and application of anything involving creative skill or imagination.

To call it a waste because it is money spent “to entertain foreigners, especially from Europe”, reveals an even greater ignorance, not just by its jingoism, but about the very importance of the arts itself.

I say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I hope you’ll indulge me in a brief two-minute parenthetical.

(I have heard the New York Philharmonic perform in the Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center Plaza, I have heard the London Philharmonic play in the Royal Festival Hall, and I have heard the Malaysian Philharmonic in our very own Dewan Filharmonik Petronas. You sit back, you close your eyes, and I swear to God you can barely distinguish between the three. Although I must say that I prefer the immaculate acoustics in our own little bit of musical heaven that sits beneath 452 metres of tapering twin towers. It’s the place where sounds go to die.)

The fact remains that you get what you pay for.

Paying world-class prices will almost always get you world-class standards. Paying peanuts will get you monkeys. Something that has consistently held true in every aspect of our society.

The hall itself is maintained to perfection and with ticket prices for some concerts as low as RM8.50, it is quite possibly the most accessible venue in the world.

I have no idea as to its profitability, but that is of very little consequence. Its purpose is to educate. Its purpose is to feed our souls. It is a social service. And you cannot put a price on that.

There is no conflict between art and commerce. The debate is irrelevant. Commerce relies on clear notions of success and failure. In the arts, there is no failure; everything has value, a juncture by which is born the next piece, and the next, until finally, something extraordinary.

The naysayers and their endless jeremiads usually begin with some reverse snobbery about why Malaysians even need something so ostentatious, so lavish, so “Western”?

Why does Malaysia need a world-class philharmonic orchestra? It is, after all, something that only caters to a select few, to the beau monde.

They make the argument that the arts appeal to only the rich and the middle classes.

They make it sound like there is, in fact something innate, some inherent quality which enables a person to enjoy Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

But it is education that leads to appreciation. It is something that is taught and by consequence, learned. It isn’t by any means something that is intrinsic.

They then bring up the same old complaint, that by paying foreigners large sums of money, we are in fact ignoring our local talent.

Needles and haystacks come to mind. The pool is incredibly shallow. Sure, we send our children for their piano lessons and their art classes. We force them to learn the violin.

But we do nothing to encourage their appreciation. Heaven forbid they decide to take it up professionally. It was only ever meant to pad the resume.

The way we educate our children is appalling. We have successfully produced generations of competent doctors, lawyers and accountants, of young people who can do little more than add up a string of numbers, or write a coherent sentence.

We are such cultural peasants that we have misunderstood the very reason we learn music and all the arts. As it is only from such creativity and imagination can we begin to discover the solutions to our political and social afflictions.

The only way to develop a local talent pool is by exposure. Because all artists, be they painters, musicians, or writers, are those who are moved to emulate that which moves them.

We can all afford to be poets. We can afford to spend a lot more and we should. We must lose the mindset that somehow spending money on the arts is a waste, that it is in fact taking money away from something else, from something more important.

Money and resources are by no means a finite commodity. They are infinite and there should be some balance in how we channel them.

There is an old joke.

An American tourist in Tel Aviv was about to enter the impressive Mann Auditorium to take in a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic.

Enthralled by the unique architecture of the building, he turned to his escort and asked if the building was named for Thomas Mann, the world-famous author.

“No,” his friend said, “it’s named for Fredric Mann, from Philadelphia.”

“Really? I’ve never heard of him. What did he write?”

“A cheque.”