1 Message from the Chair Dear Applicant I’m delighted that you’re interested in the Chief Executive role at St George’s that has become vacant following the announcement of Suzanne Rolt’s departure to Bristol’s Quartet Community Foundation at the end of April. As with all other performance and arts venues, St George’s has been largely closed over the last 12 months, but we’re hopeful we can start to re-engage more fully with our audiences, local communities, performers and supporters this summer. It will be wonderful to bring people back into the building, with its only relatively recently completed new extension; and exciting to dust off our growth plans. St George’s is well set for the future. Suzanne’s legacy is a well-loved organisation, with an engaged and skilled staff team, enjoying an enhanced standing locally and nationally. To replace her, we’re looking for an ambitious and dynamic leader for the next phase of the charity’s development, bringing their own clarity of vision and purpose to the organisation. We’re looking for someone to be an ambassador for St George’s, to take forward the organisation’s vision to become an all-day creative space for music and ideas, to extend our engagement with communities throughout Bristol, and to expand our commercial activities. We’re excited at the prospect of facing these challenges together with our new Chief Executive. Ben Heald Chair of the Board of Trustees 2 A N O V E R V I E W St George’s Bristol is one of the UK’s leading concert halls, celebrated for the quality, range and imagination of its artistic programme, as well as for the high esteem in which it is held by artists and audiences. Sir Simon Rattle marked it out as having the ‘finest chamber music acoustic in Europe’ and this, in combination with an intimate atmosphere, makes it a major draw for the world’s greatest musicians, as well as for creative partnerships with recording companies and the BBC. In a typical year we welcome 120,000 visitors to the building and stage 500+ events through our artistic, learning and commercial activity strands. Our artistic programme is a highly curated one that spans classical, jazz, folk, contemporary and world music, as well as spoken word artists. It features creative partnerships with artists from around the UK, and with communities and creators in Bristol and the South West. A £6.5m capital project saw St George’s relaunch in late 2018, with a new, award winning building whose contemporary architecture perfectly complements the existing Grade II* building (designed by Sir Robert Smirke, architect of the British Museum). The main concert hall holds 580 audience members while the spaces in the new building are fully accessible and flexibly configured to allow for a wide range of performance, learning, community and commercial activities. There is a modern café-bar area that attracts daytime visitors as well as enhancing the experience for audiences attending our busy schedule of evening events. Overall, this transformation is supporting our vision to be ‘a creative and imaginative space for music and ideas at the heart of our community’. Our Programme We aim to create a diverse and sustainable programme of the world’s finest musicians and thinkers, to enable deep exploration of music and ideas. We create bold contexts for performance; vibrant, relevant conversation; and imaginative opportunities for people to be a part of culture. Our programme embraces, opens up, and connects a broad range of genres, creative styles and subjects, and provides a vital platform for local amateur creators. We also support the work of practitioners in grassroots, voluntary and learning contexts. We are proud of the many partnerships we have launched and cultivated over the years. We have a close association with orchestras such as the OAE, Aurora, and Chineke! and many artists consider it to be a musical home. These relationships have enabled us to build ambitious series and festivals that have taken the St George’s name and sound far beyond Bristol. Long running series such as Migrations and week-long residencies with the BBC (Earth Music Bristol, Brahms Experience, Bristol Baroque Festival) have allowed us to explore major themes through music and 3 cross art-form collaborations. In this spirit, we are currently working on the return of our Bristol International Keyboard Festival as well as plans to launch a major new multi-year Rebel Music series that will be a rallying cry for social change and provide a platform for musicians to explore the possibilities of protest through their music. We believe culture is vital in celebrating difference and solidarity in our communities. We devise and collaborate to support opportunities for any person to be a part of music-making and to be inspired. We invite people to explore and co-create through choirs, production and performance; we work with older, socially-isolated people through a daytime programme; and we take work out to settings city-wide to inspire and connect people with culture. With a firm belief in the power of music to bring positive change to people’s lives from an early age, we deliver an award-winning Learning & Participation programme, engaging with around 4,000 children and young people each year. Through this we offer a supportive and inclusive platform to young musicians and other young creatives, and inspire children across the wide spectrum of our city and region through live performance and participation opportunities. Business & Operational Model St George’s Bristol is a charity operating a not-for-profit business model with an annual turnover of approximately £1.3m. We generate income through ticket sales, venue hire, fundraising and the café and bar. We work closely with Bristol Music Trust as a partner of Bristol Music Consortium, through which we secure NPO investment from Arts Council England. To support the organisation through the current Covid pandemic we have to date received grants from the DCMS, Arts Council England and Bristol City Council. Commercial use of the building directly supports our income generation, with our spaces hired out for events, conferences, graduation ceremonies and wedding receptions. We also enjoy a strategic relationship with the University of Bristol. St George’s is governed by a non-executive Board of Trustees and led by the Chief Executive, supported by a senior management team. In addition to our current permanent staff team of 22 full time and part time employees, 20 casual staff are involved in running events, the box office and hospitality operations, with the assistance of over 100 volunteers. The St George’s Board currently comprises 10 locally-based trustees from a variety of professional backgrounds. In a step towards increasing the Board’s diversity, and in partnership with Bristol’s Rising Arts Agency, two young creatives are being appointed in March, along with up to three further trustees in due course. 4 Equality & Diversity We seek to put individuals with different cultures, perspectives and experiences at the heart of the way we work. We want to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people, regardless of their background, and make best use of their talents. We recognise that being an inclusive employer helps us fulfil our responsibility to make a positive difference for our organisation and for the city. We are committed to promoting equality across the organisation. About Bristol Bristol is the gateway to England’s West Country, a vibrant and green city with culture and creativity at its heart, and a great place to live. As well as being one of the UK’s most popular tourist destinations, Bristol was named by the Sunday Times as ‘the Best City in Britain in which to live’ in 2014 and 2017, and Bristol also won the EU’s European Green Capital Award in 2015. With a population of 670,000, Bristol’s modern economy is built on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries, and the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city is home to two Universities and a wealth of artistic and sporting organisations and venues. St George’s is located in the heart of Bristol and is a vital part of the city’s vibrant and thriving cultural landscape, working closely with other creative organisations such as Bristol Old Vic, Watershed, Bristol Beacon, Arnolfini, Bristol Festival of Ideas, and Bristol M-Shed and Museum and Art Gallery. St George’s is an active member of a number of Bristol cultural networks and consortia, contributing towards the development of a diverse range of activity and initiatives that bring together artists and communities around the city. For further information on St George’s Bristol, please visit: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk For information on living in Bristol, please visit: www.visitbristol.co.uk 5 R O L E O U T L I N E St George’s has recently completed the largest transformation in its history and, while pivoting to meet the challenges of the Covid pandemic in the short term, is looking ahead to a future defined by ambitious plans. The Chief Executive will provide inspirational leadership, steering the organisation through the next stage of its development at a time when the external landscape will continue to change. The successful candidate will help to inspire and challenge everyone associated with St George’s. K E Y R E S P O N S I B I L I T I E S Strategic Leadership • Provide leadership, clear strategic direction and effective management of St George’s.