Australian wins Auckland Festival's top job

An Australian children's theatre manager has been appointed chief executive of the second Auckland Festival, AK05.

David Malacari, from Adelaide, replaces former artistic director Simon Prast whose position was squeezed out during restructuring in July.

Malacari, now general manager of the Windmill Performing Arts children's theatre company, will join the AK05 team on October 11 to prepare for the February festival which has been programmed.

"I've had no input in the programme, but I've seen it and there's some exciting stuff," said Malacari.

He said he was "not extraordinarily familiar" with the New Zealand performing arts scene. But he has a long history of involvement in arts festivals, working with the Adelaide Festival for 12 years, including a stint as programme director.

He was production manager with three Womad world music festivals in Adelaide, and produced Australian cultural showcases staged in India and London.

Malacari has been general manager of Windmill since it was established three years ago by the South Australian government.


Auckland Festival chairman Richard Waddel said the position, advertised worldwide, attracted 27 applications, including two from Great Britain, one from the United States, and eight from Australia.

Malacari said he saw the festival job as having two parts.

"The first is to get the 2005 festival off the ground and as that has been largely programmed, that is more of a management issue. The next part is to work on building the festival to be the jewel in the South Pacific that we want it to be."

Next year's festival will be the second under the present structure, which is administered by a board led by Richard Waddel and financed by the Auckland City Council.

AK03 cost $2.27 million to mount and lost money.

Malacari said his goal would be to build the festival into a long-term feature of the city's cultural calendar.

"It'll take time, these things don't just drop out of the sky," he said.


He doesn't believe having an Australian managing a New Zealand arts festival presents a problem.

"You could say that in Australia why do we have so many New Zealanders working in the arts? I think this is a global market where people tend to be employed for the skills they have and those skills transfer around the world."


AK05's programme will be announced on November 11.

The festival will run from February 25 until March 13.