Speeches
Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Reception for Adelaide Festival Chairman’s Circle
Rod and I are delighted to welcome the Chairman’s Circle to Government House.
You are honoured guests and we’ve chosen to host you in our favourite part of the garden.
Like you, Rod and I are eagerly anticipating this year’s Festival.
My late mother used to say, whenever there was something she wanted to throw herself into wholeheartedly, that she had “ruled a line through her diary”.
Well, you’ve all done that, and, as much as we can, so have Rod and I.
I think it is fair to say we, all of us, regard our participation in Festival events not just as a pleasure, but as a demonstration of our wholehearted support for the place of the arts in the life of the state, for the artists – local, interstate and international - who create and perform the works, and for everyone who brings the Festival to life.
Rod and I look forward to starting our season next week with the world premiere of the Australian Dance Theatre’s A Quiet Language and we keenly anticipate the Festival’s formal opening night with this year’s centrepiece opera Innocence.
I thank the Chairman’s Circle for its support totalling $340,000 for the staging of Innocence, which is a coup for the Festival. I understand audiences here will see the opera before it is premiered at the Met.
Over the past ten years, the Chairman’s Circle has contributed an impressive $3.3 million to the Adelaide Festival.
I know that at the heart of your generosity and membership of the Chairman’s Circle is your belief in the importance of the Arts to our society and your commitment to ensuring the Festival continues to thrive.
Philanthropy ensures Adelaide Festival can commission and present large-scale works in opera, theatre, music, and dance, and make the Festival accessible through ambitious free events such as Adelaide Writers’ Week.
This year’s Adelaide Festival program is again bold, ambitious, and high quality. That is only to be expected as South Australians love to host Australia’s international festival and, only slightly parochially, to wear the Festival State crown.
As a society it is essential that we invest in that which we value.
That is certainly true of the arts.
We value the arts because they reflect who we are and who we want to be. They challenge us, provoke us, reward us. They connect and inspire us.
I thank members of the Adelaide Festival and Foundation Adelaide Festival boards, for your leadership and the philanthropic activities that make the Festival something well worth ruling a line through one’s diary for.
Rod and I wish you an enjoyable and successful festival and we look forward to being members of the audience with you.
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