Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to pay tribute to Clifford Hocking AM, who passed away on Monday, 12 June. He was a shining light in the development of artistic culture in Australia, and his life was devoted to nurturing and supporting Australian and international talent.

Clifford Henry Hocking was born in Melbourne on 9 February 1932 to Olive and Fred Hocking. The youngest of five boys, he grew up in Eaglemont and, from an early age, showed an avid interest in music and books. He spent his early working life at the ABC, then travelled to Europe, Lebanon and India, returning home to set up a record store, Thomas’s, in Exhibition Street, Melbourne, which he ran until 1961. Back in London, he met up with a young Australian actor who was finishing a West End run of Oliver! and wondering what to do next. Hocking suggested a one-man show back in Australia. Between 1962 and 1969, Barry Humphries performed his first one-man shows in three national tours under Clifford Hocking’s management.

In 1965, Clifford joined forces with business partner David Vigo and, in the words of Michael Shmith of the Age, ‘redefined concert presentations and repertoire in Australia’. Over the next 40 years, under the Hocking-Vigo banner, audiences were presented with more than 160 tours of musical groups and more than 40 theatrical productions in 10 different countries. The list of artists is very impressive. It included the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Blossom Dearie, Cleo Laine, The Chieftains, Elvis Costello, the Harlem Gospel Choir, Jacques Loussier, John Williams, Kate Cerebrano, Max Adrian, Paco Pena, the Peking Opera, Rowan Atkinson, Ravi Shankar, Slava Grigoryan, Stephane Grappelli, Slim Dusty, Stan Getz and the Soweto Gospel Choir—to name but a few.

Clifford was appointed Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival in 1990 and of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 1997. He presented the New York City Ballet and the Gate Theatre of Dublin, as well as commissioning the Australian Ballet and the Bangarra Dance Theatre to perform the work Rites to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The Age reported earlier in the week: ‘His festivals set new standards and broke box office records. His ability to marshal programs that were at once diverse and challenging, yet also entertaining, was almost unparalleled.’

In 1990, he was made a member of the Order of Australia, in 1991 he was awarded the first Kenneth Myer Medallion for the Performing Arts, and in 2001 he was awarded the JC Williamson Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to live entertainment. More recently, as Director of the Harold Mitchell Foundation, he supported a number of artists, including David Tong and his much-loved Australian Youth Orchestra. I understand that only last week Clifford was speaking with great enthusiasm about the foundation’s support for the work of Australian Aboriginal artists to be featured in Jacques Chirac’s new museum in Paris, the Musee du Quai Branly.

We will never know the full extent of Clifford Hocking’s contribution. To quote again from the tribute in the Age, Clifford was:

… such a part of the city’s cultural life that people are finding it hard to believe that he has left the stage.

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He was inspirational to at least three generations of arts practitioners.

Clifford Hocking was a man with the courage of his convictions, an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, strong business acumen and the profound and intuitive ability to tap into the human spirit and its potential. He was known for having the best address book in the business. He will also be remembered for his towering intellect, his devastating wit, his inspirational prose, his larger than life personality, his insatiable curiosity, and the love of all the good things in life.

Forty-five years of extraordinary artistic discoveries is a record simply unparalled in the arts scene in Australia. We bid farewell to one of the finest and possibly the last of the great international impresarios. This is indeed a great loss to the arts community. My daughter, Nathalie Kemp, worked with him for a period of time and was a great admirer of his work. I am sure that all senators join with me in marking the moment in remembering Clifford Hocking.