Executive Director Arts Organisations

Tony Grybowski

I learnt piano from an early age but it was the tuba that became my instrument. When I started high school, the music master took one look at me and said, ‘Great, we need a double bass player and a tuba player, which do you want to be?’ And that was it. It was no more complicated than that. The school had a full orchestra and brass band and we were taken off to many different public performances. I became totally immersed.

I studied at the University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium of Music for five years and my goal was to become an orchestral musician. I was just so excited by the sound of an orchestra. I hadn’t considered anything else and nobody had ever mentioned administration or management as a career, never at all. Then one day someone said to me, quite casually, ‘You’d make a really good orchestral manager.’ (I was always the one who was organising everyone else!) And that’s where my career in management started.

I took a three-month job with the State Orchestra of Victoria and I can still remember walking into the pit of the State Theatre for the first time. I heard the music and I felt the energy on stage and I knew I had a part to play. In my next role, I went on to work with Stuart Challender at the Sydney Symphony (I was 23 and terrified) and then, from 1989, my long association with the Australian Youth Orchestra began.

It’s amazing how your pathway unfolds. I discovered my passion for the arts through performing and that has led me here, to this passion for administration and management. Twenty years on, I still love working behind the scenes, supporting artists and arts organizations. Management roles don’t have to be a mystery anymore.