The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has cancelled pianist Jayson Gillham's concert after he dedicated music to the journalists who have been killed in Gaza, writes The Guardian.
The song performed was "Witness" by Connor D'Netto, and Australian-British Gillham said: "Over the past 10 months, Israel has killed more than a hundred Palestinian journalists. A number of these have been targeted murders of prominent journalists when they were traveling in marked press vehicles or wearing their press jackets."
Gillham also highlighted that it is a war crime in international law to kill journalists, and that it is done in an attempt to prevent documentation of the war.
In a letter to its followers, the Symphony Orchestra then wrote that Gillham had expressed personal, political opinions and that they do not want their stage to function as such a platform.
Gillham also played a work by composer György Ligeti, whose family was murdered in the Holocaust, and talked about the political background to the work.
