Call for Tenders: AVISON Live Communication Manager

Published on 23rd February, 2009

 

Avison Ensemble and AV Festival, in partnership with culture10, seek to contract a Communications Manager who will oversee all aspects of Marketing, Media and Public Relations management and delivery for Avison Live, a major new audio visual commission and series of live concerts, which form part of the tercentenary celebrations of the North East composer Charles Avison.

A composer, conductor, organist and writer of music, Avison was born in Newcastle in 1709, and is considered to be the most important English concerto composer of the 18th century. This project is a unique collaboration by two of the North East's leading arts organisations, The Avison Ensemble and AV Festival, which aims to bring the North East's musical heritage to new and contemporary audiences. Avison Live forms part of NewcastleGateshead's world-class programme of festivals and events in 2009, managed by culture10

The successful contractor will work on a fixed-term contract for a fixed fee, from March to September 2009.

KEY OBJECTIVES OF AVISON LIVE

  • Deliver a large scale audio visual event of outstanding artistic quality which will attract significant numbers in terms of audiences and profile regionally, nationally and internationally.
  • Raise public awareness of both electronic arts and classical music.
  • Bring the music of Charles Avison to a new, younger audience in a way that is vital to the current times and in keeping with Avison's own attitude to culture and participation.
  • Provide a major new commission opportunity for a leading contemporary artist, showing how contemporary audio visual artists can work with historical music.

DEADLINES

  • The tender deadline is 10am on 6 March 2009. No late submissions will be accepted.
  • Interviews (if necessary) will be held on 13 March 2009.
  • The contract will be awarded on 16 March 2009.
  • The contract period is from 16 March to 30 September 2009.

BUDGET

The indicative fee for this contract is GBP 7000.

OVERVIEW OF AVISON LIVE

Avison Live will be a major public event, taking place in Newcastle City Centre in September 2009. At the heart of the event will be the premiere of a new audio visual commission by a leading contemporary artist and a series of live concerts by the world famous Avison Ensemble. The design of the event is open to interpretation, however key venues for the event may include historic sites related to Avison's performances, including churches, The Old Assembly Rooms and the Bigg Market in Newcastle, an area that is still known for its many pubs, clubs and raucous revellers. The event must have the potential to engage large numbers.

The new commission will respond to Avison's music, his groundbreaking music criticism and the rich historical context in which his music was performed three hundred years ago. In the 1700's Charles Avison started the Bigg Market's reputation as a centre of entertainment. His fortnightly concerts held in the Groat Market Assembly Rooms were the peaks of Newcastle's social calendar; raucous affairs held in rooms above drinking dens, which started at 6pm and finished at 2am. At the peak of the Industrial Revolution, with entrepreneurs, factory owners and engineers in the city hungry for culture and entertainment, Avison made Newcastle into England's greatest provincial music centre of the day outside of London.