Edith Dubsky builds up Musica Viva in Adelaide with legendary, loving and detailed care as a volunteer, 1947-83
Edith Dubsky took on subscriptions and publicity, as well as looking after musicians, as honorary secretary of Musica Viva in South Australia.
Image courtesy Musica Viva
Edith Dubsky was at the heart of Musica Viva in South Australia for 34 years (1947-83), building it from 300 to 1,100 subscribers and managing, as a virtual volunteer, more than 700 concerts with a combined audience of about 300,000.
With Regina Ridge in Sydney, Dubsky is credited with a major role in nurturing Musica Viva into maturity. She arrived in Adelaide in 1941 as a Jewish-Viennese migrant escaping the menace of Nazism. Managing an imported knitwear shop called Mitzi of Vienna, she liked Adelaide but missed her background in music and theatre, especially with many Adelaide Symphony Orchestra members fighting in World War II.
After her first Musica Viva concert in 1947, its founder Richard Goldner – also Jewish Viennese – asked her to be honorary secretary of a branch to be started in Adelaide.
Musica Viva resumed fully in 1954, with Dubsky taking on its subscriptions and publicity. She also organised rehearsals, took care of the visiting musicians and supervised front of house.
Working with Adelaide committee chairman Jim Cornell, she created a warm friendly atmosphere that attracted audiences and impressed the visiting international and Australian ensemble musicians with her detailed care and remembering every name.
Neville Mariner, conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, cabled Dubsky: “Edith, you are a living legend. In England, you are our colonial civilised outpost.”
When Dubsky retired in 1983, she was replaced by a full-time manager. At the 50th anniversary of Musica Viva in 1995, she was honoured with a concert by Quartetto Beethoven di Roma.
