That QPAC chief executive John Kotzas is retiring is huge news in the arts world.
It comes in a week when Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a big supporter of the arts, finishes up at the tower of power in George Street.
And the same week that long-serving Queensland Ballet artistic director Li Cunxin prepares to bow out.
This is a changing of the guard that is unexpected. Kotzas, 68, is a youthful and dynamic bloke who could arguably have kept going for another decade. But, as he points out, there comes a time when one has to think about the future and that time is now. However, there will be a year for the succession plan to play out.
“I’ve given one year’s notice,” Kotzas tells me. “That gives the organisation time to start the search process.”
It is also hoped that will give him time to preside over the opening of QPAC’s new theatre, a project which will be just one of his many legacies.
In the arts world Kotzas is well liked and admired for his honest, down-to-earth approach. He’s regarded as family by many of us and he has been around for so long it’s hard to imagine QPAC without him.
“I’ve been here half my life,” he says. “It’s been such a privilege.”
Kotzas, a UQ arts graduate, will end his QPAC appointment in December 2024. In recognition of his distinguished service to the arts, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2021.
In 2016, he was presented with the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) for his commitment to Italian arts, culture and the community in Australia. He also holds honorary doctorates from the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.
Kotzas grew up in Innisfail in Far North Queensland where he developed a love for the arts through his involvement with the Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe, with which he hooked up through one of his teachers. He credits that company’s founder, the legendary thespian Bryan Nason, as his mentor.
Along the way, Kotzas has also been a teacher, working at Brisbane State High for eight years.
He first joined QPAC as an education officer in 1989 and rose to the position of chief executive in December 2008. He’s only the venue’s third chief, following in the footsteps of founding director Tony Gould and, later, Craig McGovern.
I dined with Kotzas recently in an interval for The Ring Cycle, a ground-breaking opera event that has brought thousands from interstate and overseas to see Richard Wagner’s masterpiece staged here exclusively by Opera Australia. Kotzas was relaxed and revelling in the success of that venture.
His entrepreneurial flair has fostered such events and he says he’s particularly proud of the QPAC International Series, which brought some of the world’s top performing arts companies to Brisbane before Covid-19 hit. The last of these was the famed Bolshoi Ballet in 2019.
Kotzas has grassroots connections to the arts world and has also mixed with some of the leading figures in the field internationally. Standout memory? There are so many, yet he picks one almost immediately.
“A standout for me was having coffee with (Italian composer) Ennio Morricone in Rome,” Kotzas recalls. “That was a real highlight. We were talking about the possibility of him coming to Brisbane.”
Unfortunately, his poor health meant Morricone wasn’t able to travel and he died in 2020. Which makes us think of what might have been. Kotzas, for his part, was in awe of spending time with the legendary composer and maestro. As for who else he has met, well, it’s probably more a question of who he hasn’t.
Kotzas and his wife Jano, (director and creative powerhouse of The Prop House Pty Ltd) have two children, Liberty, 16, and Charlie, 14.
“Jano and the children are very supportive, so I’m lucky,” Kotzas says. “The kids did find it a bit confronting when I first told them, because they have only known me in this job.
“As to what I will do when I finish, well, I honestly haven’t given it much thought because all of my energy and time goes into thinking about this job. It’s a seven days a week job and it’s a lifestyle.
“Certainly, there’s some travel the family wants to do. I’d like to spend more time on improving my language skills.”
Kotzas has Greek heritage and would like to work on his Greek. And he’d like to do some fishing. This from a man who is used to glittering first nights and mixing with leaders in the arts and politics daily.
“I find fishing to be very meditative,” he says. “We spend a lot of time on Straddie. Beach fishing there is something I want to spend more time doing.”
Chair of the Board of Trustees Professor Peter Coaldrake acknowledged Kotzas’s extraordinary contribution not only to QPAC but also to the development of the performing arts in Queensland and Australia over his long career.
“John is regarded, with good justification, as a commanding figure who has been at the forefront of the arts sector for a long period,” Coaldrake says.
“Through its outstanding successes — including audacious international partnerships, new local commissions and a growing focus on First Nations peoples and culture — QPAC is now in an enviable position. Audience numbers have rebounded post-pandemic with recent annual attendance at more than 1.2 million patrons, including interstate and overseas guests.
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“And the finalisation of the new 1500-seat theatre will make QPAC the largest performing arts venue in the Southern Hemisphere,” adds Coaldrake.
“It is a testament to John’s leadership that many of the organisation’s achievements have been accomplished over a period in which QPAC has had to deal with major disruptions: two major flooding events, in 2011 and 2022, and a global pandemic whose impact on QPAC’s business and the entire arts ecosystem were fundamental and far-reaching.
“With the new theatre due for completion later next year and the Olympics on the horizon, QPAC has extraordinary opportunities ahead.”
The Board of Trustees has initiated an international search for a new CEO and will be assisted in the search by Anthony Armstrong of Russell Reynolds.
There will be a public opportunity hosted by QPAC in November next year to properly celebrate the outstanding career of John Kotzas.
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