In March 2023, Italian arts entrepreneur Paolo Petrocelli left Cremona’s celebrated Academia Stauffer to become General Manager of the Dubai Opera House in the United Arab Emirates. A longtime faculty mentor at The Global Leaders Institute, Petrocelli serves the UAE public today by presenting wide-ranging concerts, including opera, ballet, musicals, jazz, and pop, in the Opera House’s quest to herald a vibrant, rich cultural life in Dubai.
While the recent move to Dubai may have appeared as a “plot twist” to some following Petrocelli’s longtime European trajectory, the new role represents the fruition of a range of long-term interests of Petrocelli embodied in a single position — including music diplomacy, social impact, and arts leadership.
To gather insights from Petrocelli’s experience working with these themes, The Global Leaders Institute compiled extracts from a conversation with him in December 2022 as he attended Cases for Culture, a conference convened and organized by the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University and sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. At the conference, Petrocelli joined a panel of prominent arts leaders to address how “Music ‘scores points’ for society”.
What does it mean to be an arts leader?
PP: To be honest, it’s an unclear job. It’s not like becoming a lawyer or a doctor where luckily, you have guidelines, an academic track to follow, and a career path. Becoming a cultural manager is filled with uncertainty. Culture is everything — music, art, theater, and dance. It is a broad sector, and being a manager in such an area is challenging, especially when interacting with many stakeholders: institutions, the private sector, and the media. But it is a beautiful journey about creativity, passion, and following what you believe in. Doing my job means supporting cultural initiatives to impact our society. My colleagues and I work to ensure that culture is not distant from the concrete needs of the community.
As a doctor of Cultural Economics, what is the relationship between Culture and Economics?
PP: The connection is strong. I come from Italy in Europe, where there are many discussions, especially on a political level, that culture cannot generate financial impact. It is seen as a cost. “We must invest in it, but there will be no return.” Even though we know this is false, politicians sometimes use this argument as an excuse. They do not shape a real innovative cultural vision for the political agenda. Culture is seen as mere entertainment. But the truth is culture is generating so much wealth around the world.
Part of your role is to build audiences. How does this process nurture tangents between culture and economics?
PP: Part of our work is to generate an audience. But it is more about listening to the audience, listening to the people. A big mistake in the European way of offering cultural initiatives to our society is that it usually dictates, “We are here to teach you what is essential. We will teach this through art and music, so you must come to the museum and the opera because you will elevate yourself through it.” I prefer another kind of storytelling around this: “We are here to help you boost yourself through art and culture. And we are also here to listen to you and understand what kind of expectations you have and what kind of cultural experience you want to have.”
It is about more than just creating an audience. For example, audience development is often challenging for cultural institutions when an issue is at the institution’s core. I’m not saying bringing an audience to a museum or theater is easy, but it doesn’t have to be too complicated. If it is too complex, you are not serving your community. If it is too difficult, you are doing something the people around you do not understand.
You call this “traditional approach” a common mistake of many European institutions. Is there another common mistake cultural institutions make?
PP: Most of the time, they are apprehensive about change, about innovation. Generally speaking, of course. Many institutions are doing great work innovating in the institution’s overall strategy. Most cultural institutions are too scared of change to change their programming, open up to different languages, and be creative and energetic. Creativity is exactly what you would expect from a cultural organization.
What are the signs of development in culture? Do you see it as the articulation of new institutions or the successful transformation of existing ones?
PP: Both. Transforming solid cultural institutions that have existed for hundreds of years is complicated. Most of the time, a historical enterprise is also affiliated with a historic building. For instance, when we think of the major opera houses in Europe, how can we innovate in places with 300 years of history? This history affects how we experience the organization. When you can build a cultural enterprise from scratch, the venue will be similar to the contemporary world. So it is easier to make people more comfortable when they enter an institutional venue. This is another aspect.
People feel uncomfortable entering many cultural institutions right now. They say, “This is not for me; this is too connected to the past. I want the present and the future; I don’t want to be reminded that this was the way things were, just to stay together.” This is all about technological innovation, and our lives are changing. We are not used anymore to staying together, even in a theater for three hours. It is an awkward experience for many people because we are not used to being without our phones.
Let’s turn to one of your main interests, the relationship between Music and Diplomacy. What is the connection?
PP: Music Diplomacy is part of what you may call cultural diplomacy, which is soft power. We are using art and culture to strengthen the relations of people and countries. This is what politics usually does. Can music change the world? Well, it is changing the world by itself. We can use it. But music is transformative already without doing anything special. If I talk for two hours, I will probably be bored, but if I have the talent for singing and inspiring you guys, you will change after my performance in the way you feel emotions. And this is happening all the time. We know that going to a concert is one of the best experiences of every kind of music. Using this kind of energy, of power that music has, to make even more is an opportunity; it is a great opportunity. This means we must bring more artists where they are not supposed to be: in disadvantaged communities, war zones, and places with little culture and education. Music is a great answer. Can music stop a war? Not at all. A peace concert is not enough. Not at all. A song for peace-promoting human rights is enough? Not at all. But it is an incredible tool for political and diplomatic actions.
Is there an upcoming issue or topic we might see you working on soon?
PP: As you know, I’m from Italy, and I’ve always wondered what I can do as an Italian to facilitate better interaction between people from other regions of the Euro-Mediterranean area. I founded almost ten years ago an NGO that promotes musical diplomacy between Europe and the Middle East with the idea of challenging artists to say, “Guys, your work is not just on the stage.” Being an artist doesn’t mean just being an artist onstage. You can be an artist in our society in so many different ways; you can inspire people and aid people not only in concert halls and theaters. So this is what I’m trying to do, to create this community of European and Middle Eastern artists to work together for the benefit of new generations -not just musicians- also citizens. We can use music: concerts, workshops, etc., to launch strong messages. We say, “Ah, yes, the musical community is so global, so interconnected,” I’m afraid this is not true. When you talk to an Italian artist, they know little about what is happening in middle eastern music and vice versa. There are still significant gaps, especially in the cultural community worldwide. It is not true that we are so connected that we know each other well. There is much to do to reduce cultural distances.
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About Paolo Petrocelli
Paolo Petrocelli is a cultural manager and university professor driven by the belief that culture, arts, and education are significant forces for growth, development, and change globally. Former Board Member and Assistant to the Superintendent of the Rome Opera House and former founding Director-General of the Stauffer Center for Strings in Cremona, Italy, Paolo is the Head of the Dubai Opera House in the United Arabe Emirates. He is the Founder and President of EMMA for Peace (Euro-Mediterranean Music Academy), one of the world’s largest international nonprofit enterprises for promoting a culture of peace through music diplomacy and education in Europe, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean region. Paolo is the Founder and Honorary President of the Italian Youth Association for UNESCO, the largest youth organization in the UNESCO system, and Cultural Diplomacy Officer for the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. As a cultural and performing arts manager, university professor, and researcher, he collaborated with prestigious international enterprises, major music institutions, and world-renowned artists like the United Nations, the European Commission, the Rome Opera House, and Coldplay. In 2022, he was selected by the think tank Friends of Europe among the 40 most influential young personalities in Europe and nominated European Young Leader.
About the Cases for Culture Conference
Organized by The Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University, the Cases for Culture Conference was held on Dec 2-3, 2022, presenting collaborations among distinguished artists, humanists, policymakers, and entrepreneurs who promote the social contributions of creativity. Brief narratives and the measured impact of creative interventions conveyed how and why participatory arts work to address transversal social concerns such as climate change, economic development, public health, education, violence prevention, and immigration, among others.▣
