HELEN Roben, CEO of beleaguered music organisation Music for Canberra, has resigned.

Teachers at MFC were told in an email that was circulated yesterday, (September 28). Not marked confidential, it told recipients that Roben would be leaving on Friday. October 8.

Roben, who joined MFC after her surprise resignation as general manager of the National Folk Festival in April, was at the centre of a brouhaha in June when she sacked respected musical director Rowan Harvey-Martin as conductor of Canberra Youth Orchestra (story here), replacing her with Louis Sharpe.

Music for Canberra is a not-for-profit music school supported by ArtsACT and the Snow Foundation that also acts as the umbrella for, among others, Canberra Youth Orchestra and the James McCusker Orchestra, and resulted from an amalgamation of several instrumental and vocal youth organisations.

Many managers and CEOs have come and gone, it has also recently lost one of its two “artistic convenors”, Rachel Gould.

Gould held the fort for several months after the previous appointee, Dr Nicole Hammill, left in November after a few weeks in the job, but was joined in April by a second artistic convenor, conductor Melinda Hole, who remains in the job.

Comment has been sought from MFC chair Sheryle Moon.