After his recital was canned, Jayson Gillham took an orchestra to court

On the cusp of returning to Australia as the plaintiff in a 15-day trial, Jayson Gillham has announced a new national tour. (Supplied: Bruce Marshall) Link copiedShareShare articleJayson Gillham believes artists have a right to bring their whole selves to the stage. "I believe that everyone has the right to freedom of expression," the internationally acclaimed, London-based pianist says. That's why the British Australian musician, 39, is suing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) for discrimination based on political belief, after it cancelled one of his scheduled performances in August 2024. After Gillham's concert was canned, musicians at MSO passed a vote of no confidence in management, and The Cat Empire cancelled their gigs with the orchestra. (Supplied: Bruce Marshall) His recital was cancelled after he dedicated a new piece by Australian composer Connor D'Netto to journalists killed in Gaza at a concert in Melbourne on August 11, 2024. "Over the last 10 months, Israel has killed more than 100 Palestinian journalists," Gillham said, introducing the piece, titled Witness. "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." According to the International Federation of Journalists, an independent organisation that promotes press freedom, at least 262 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7, 2023. The Gaza Ministry of Health estimates more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including 603 since the ceasefire began in October 2025. In response to Gillham's remarks, the MSO apologised for offence and distress caused and added it "does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views", canning his next scheduled performance. Within days, the MSO said cancelling Gillham's concert had been an "error" and committed to rescheduling the recital. But negotiations between Gillham and the orchestra quickly fell apart. In October 2024, he launched legal action in the Federal Court, saying the MSO had rejected "reasonable requests to remedy the situation". "This battle in the Federal Court is about defending everyone's right to freedom of speech," he said on Instagram. "It's about ensuring artists can perform with integrity and without fear of censorship." Almost two years later, the final hearing of the case is due to begin on May 18, two months before Gillham brings a new, independently produced tour to Australia this July, alongside Jordanian Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer. It's called Keys to Life: Two Friends, Two Pianos, and it will see the pair perform pieces by Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Khachaturian, Arensky and Chabrier, and a new piece by Palestinian Lebanese composer Houtaf Khoury. After feeling stuck in a loop during the pandemic, Gillham says his forthcoming legal battle has "opened up new doors and ideas for things I want to do". (Supplied: Bruce Marshall) Gillham sees the transition to self-producing as a "natural progression" that will see him "take ownership of the artistic curation of events". "I'm interested in the collaborations and the programming and what the storytelling of the music is and what stories get told," he says. But Gillham doesn't want other musicians to have to go independent like he did. "I don't want this to be seen as something that artists will need to do in the future in order to buy their ability to be themselves on stage," he says. "I think everybody has that right, and that's why I'm fighting the case." Gillham is excited to be bringing Keys to Life to Australia, returning to perform for the first time since he initiated proceedings against MSO. "It's not just going to be an important moment for me, but it's going to be an important cultural moment," he says. In August 2024, Peter Garrett was appointed to review MSO's policies about artistic expression on stage, but pulled out three months later after delays led to a scheduling conflict. (Supplied) "There's my story and there's Iyad's story and there's the music we're playing and the environment we're in in Australia, with arts organisations having to decide how they feel about artists saying things they perhaps weren't expecting." It's a cultural context that has seen the recent scrapping of a children's book by an Indigenous author lead to a mass boycott of a celebrated publisher and the dis-invitation of a Palestinian Australian author causing the collapse of a writers' festival. Jayson Gillham, whose performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was cancelled, talks about choosing to highlight the plight of journalists in Gaza at concert. Gillham's fight with MSO — and seeing the outpouring of support that followed, with a fundraising his legal costs

After his recital was canned, Jayson Gillham took an orchestra to court

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