What are the benefits of a residence?

9 Dec 2014

Tania Frazer gives an insider’s perspective on the benefits and challenges of being an Ensemble-in-Residence at a major performing arts venue…

Southern Cross Soloists have been Ensemble-in-Residence at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) since 2010. Our close association with Queensland’s premiere performance venue has been extremely valuable to the growth of our company.  The main benefits of our relationship include:

• improved company branding
• marketing assistance
• logistics support

QPAC’s assistance in branding has possibly been the most advantageous to us as we share common ideals of performance excellence combined with commercial and social accountability. In turn, this has continued to grow audience confidence in our product and has assisted in attracting high-level international guest soloists to perform with us.

As our company vision is to present the finest quality musicians and chamber music in Australia it is essential to align ourselves with a company and venue that shares these goals. Furthermore, it allows us to perform in a world-class concert hall with outstanding acoustics that delivers an excellent concert experience for patrons. A residency agreement such as the one we have with QPAC is part of the ongoing strategic objectives for our company.

Southern Cross Soloists were previously residents at the Queensland Conservatorium.  This was also an advantageous partnership because it provided us with an excellent venue and some logistic support, but it did not offer us any marketing or PR assistance. Our move to QPAC enabled the company to grow a step further and focus on developing our brand, increasing our exposure in the market place and focusing on the commercial viability of our product. In the future we hope to develop similar relationships with venues in Sydney and Melbourne to in order to achieve our goal of increasing our brand presence nation-wide.

Our development as a resident company at QPAC has been focussed on expanding our marketing skills and reach. QPAC assists us with developing hard and soft marketing collateral, which is then marketed to their classical music database. While we do our own independent marketing to maintain a personal relationship with our own audience base, the increased help from QPAC means the message gets to a wider audience. Unfortunately, we still struggle to gain media coverage, as do all arts companies. In some ways, being at QPAC hasn’t increased our exposure in the media, as coverage is spread evenly over all QPAC productions. Often we can get lost in in the vast number of productions QPAC presents each year. So it is essential we continue to take some responsibility for both PR and marketing.
The logistics support we receive includes rehearsal venues (when available) and office space at Merivale Street, which is an invaluable resource.

Being in residence at a commercial venue like QPAC means we are held to high standards as far as commercial viability is concerned. My challenge as Creative Director is to make programs fresh and innovative but at the same time have a broad audience appeal. In the past, many artists have felt that it was an either/or situation, (either high art or populist/commercial), but I endeavour to develop programs that will tick both boxes. This makes programming slightly more of a challenge but worthwhile, as the end result is invariably more rewarding.  I see Southern Cross Soloists as a product that I need to sell in the market place. The basic rules of supply and demand are relevant. If no-one wants to buy your product, your company will fail. It is the same across all of the arts.

One of the difficulties of growing our entrepreneurial capacity is identifying and stimulating/growing further demand in the marketplace for our product. QPAC has helped immensely in getting our name out there but the challenge is to attract new audience members to our concerts. To do this, we need to focus on two areas:

• attracting and retaining patrons who already like classical music by offering the very best chamber music concerts in QLD
• attracting and educating new audiences who would not normally attend a classical music concert.

We do this by offering a product that challenges/breaks down the perception that classical music is ‘exclusive and high-brow’ with our intimate and up-close and personal performance style.
Another challenge of our residency is the high cost of staffing associated with presenting a concert at a large venue such as QPAC.

The company has grown so much that if we were to finish our relationship with QPAC the quality of our product would not be affected. However, getting the product recognition in the market place would be extremely difficult.  It would most likely be necessary for our company to consider another residency relationship with similar benefits, whilst independently developing our capacity in the areas of marketing and PR.

The QPAC residency has been paramount to Southern Cross Soloists’ growth from a small chamber ensemble to one of Queensland’s flagship small arts companies.  In 2015 we celebrate our 20th anniversary as an ensemble. We have weathered many changes over the 20 years and our aim is to continue our growth so that the company is still flourishing 20 years from now. This will mean constant re-evaluation of our product to keep it fresh and current whilst retaining the original essence of the ensemble. Backing from QPAC or a similar residency will give us an excellent foundation to support this evolution.

Our current goals are to increase audience numbers through presenting  ‘not to be missed’ quality concert experiences that cannot be found elsewhere. Our special 2015 anniversary QPAC Subscription Series includes a record number of super star guest soloists. Already this has increased interest from patrons living in NSW and Victoria who plan to fly up to Brisbane for the concerts. We aim to increase this trend through excellence in programming as we continue to present international quality chamber music concerts at Queensland’s premier performance venue.

Tania has performed as Principal Oboe with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony, Stavanger Symphony in Norway, the Montreal Chamber Orchestra and was Principal Cor Anglais of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for a season.
From 1997-2001, Tania held the position of Principal Oboe with the prestigious Israel Opera in Tel Aviv. From 2004-2008, Tania was Principal Oboe with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and performed as a soloist with them on their 2006 tour of Europe alongside American soprano Dawn Upshaw at some of Europe’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls.   A recipient of numerous prizes and awards, Tania won first prize at the Coleman International Competition in Los Angeles, the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Award in London, the Australian Foundation in London Award, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Martin Award (UK) and is featured in the Who’s Who in recognition of her contribution to the arts.  As SxS Creative Director, Tania has taken on the role of Musical Director in many cross-arts productions including The Red Shoes with Expressions Dance Company and Invisible Me for Qpac’s 2012 Out of the Box Festival.