GEORGE TOWN, Feb 5 — The recent appointment of Joe Sidek, the former George Town Festival director, as chairman of the Penang Arts Council (PAC) is exactly what the long-dormant council needs.

Joe, who was elected chairman at the PAC annual general meeting last November, has been busy meeting state exco for tourism Yeoh Soon Hin, as well as local artists and art groups.

The first event he planned to introduce under PAC was "Open: A Weekend in Penang” which would have showcased the performance arts, visual arts, music as well as handicraft.

It was to have been a collaboration with Open Studios Penang which is run by a group of artists here; they organised an art festival featuring 100 leading and emerging artists back in 2019.

However, the current movement control order (MCO) brought everything to a halt and the event had to be postponed.

But now Joe wants to push ahead as there is just no telling when things will get back to "normal.”

"We decided not to wait for the situation to improve so we are going to go ahead with ‘Open’ and we will do it online,” he said.

He has already gathered some artists to participate in the online event and is now working on whether to make it available on a website or on social media.

"We have just set up the PAC Facebook page and we are working on a website now… we will have to see which is the more suitable platform, but the plan is to have the event by March,” he said.

Joe has his work cut out for him as he looks to rebuild PAC to become a platform that brings Penang artists together, with the council lying dormant for more than 16 years.

He said there are several orchestras, art groups, societies and associations in Penang with each group doing its own thing and very little interaction between them.

"My idea is for PAC to be a platform for all of the artists, performance arts or visual arts, so that we can unite everyone in the arts to work together,” he said.

He said PAC, in the past, was predominantly active in classical music and the opera but now, he wants to use it to reimagine and create a strong narrative for the Penang arts industry.

Another project PAC will be working on is to create an archive of famous Penang artists, past and present.

"Penang has produced so many talents who were successful and we want to showcase these people so that the young can dream and aspire towards similar successes,” he said.

He said the plan is to interview these artists about their art and their contribution to the arts industry.

"We have so many talents… people like Loh Siew Tuan and Tan Sri Ahmad Merican, we want to record their achievements and contributions,” he said.

Joe is also working with the Asean Universities Network as part of his long-term plan to organise programmes jointly with them as well as reach out to university students.

The Asean Universities Network has over 200 universities under its wing and Joe believes working with the network will get more university students involved in the arts.

PAC, established in 1954, organised concerts and recitals in the 1960s and 1970s.

During that period, visiting artistes such as American violinist Sylvia Rosenberg, American pianist Seymour Bernstein, English pianist Irene Kohler and Romanian-Israeli pianist Mindru Katz performed here.

In the 1980s, PAC brought in the then Chief Examiner of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music Jean Harvey to conduct a workshop in Penang.

It also organised a charity concert, Voice, that featured the Penang A Cappella Singers and choirs from Universiti Sains Malaysia and the Dalat International School.

It continued to organise classical music concerts and its art section sponsored numerous art exhibitions before it slowed down and subsequently became dormant in 2004.

PAC also set up a Dato IK Cheah Memorial Prize in 1985 which gave out awards to talented young artists annually.