Musicians across the country have banded together to protect live music in the wake of a decision by West Australian Ballet to scrap live orchestra music from the upcoming Adelaide tour of the award-winning Dracula.
WA Ballet, which has had a long-running partnership with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra to perform live at its productions, will instead rely on recorded music for six shows to be held at the Adelaide Festival Centre in April.
Represented by the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, more than 500 orchestral musicians from across Australia and New Zealand have demanded that WA Ballet engage musicians for the show.
MEAA Musicians Director, Paul Davies, said the move was part of an emerging trend of performance arts companies devaluing live music, driven by cost-cutting.
"As the union for Australia's media and creative workers, which includes musicians, MEAA urges the WA Ballet to immediately reverse its decision to scrap live music from its upcoming Adelaide performances of Dracula," Mr Davies said.
"The WA Ballet has a responsibility to include live music in its productions, and we will continue to speak out when this doesn't happen.
"It disrespects the audience by diminishing their experience, and at the same time it compromises dancers' ability to practice their art with creativity and integrity and denies musicians the dignity of work."
Adelaide-based violinist Nadia Buck said she would have liked the opportunity to be booked to play for Dracula.
"Being a freelance musician, work can be precarious so it's quite disheartening to see the contribution of live music devalued in this way," she said.
"But it's not just about the income – though that's obviously important - it's also about being part of something special and dynamic, performing live with dancers, feeling their energy and inspiring the audience.
"A live orchestra follows the dancers' steps in real-time, allowing us to be spontaneous and expressive together. For the audience, recorded music just doesn't compare to the real thing."
A motion calling on West Australian Ballet to engage musicians for their 2026 Adelaide run of Dracula and make a firm commitment to KEEP MUSIC LIVE, has been unanimously supported by musicians in the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera Australia Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, Orchestra Wellington and Christchurch Symphony Orchestra also backed the motion.
Mr Davies said companies, particularly those that received government funding, had an obligation to protect and preserve jobs.
"When organisations rely on taxpayer dollars to operate, as the WA Ballet does, it's only fair to expect them to provide meaningful employment for real people, rather than seeking ways to cut corners and undermine the workforce - musicians must not be seen as optional extras." Mr Davies said.
"Years of underfunding in the arts can lead companies to make short-term decisions that devalue musicians' and dancers' work and leave audiences missing out. We must all work for a better system to support our public arts institutions, but funding problems are no excuse for bad management choices."
According to MEAA's 2025 musicians survey, almost half of the nation's working musicians are earning less than $15,000 a year in an industry where income insecurity and chronic undervaluation are commonplace.
"It is critical that our arts institutions uphold their responsibility to support artists and maintain the tradition of live music, which is at the heart of ballet and so many other performing arts."
