The Southern Cross Soloists have become a prominent part of Queensland classical music culture in the past 20 years.
Tania Frazer, the Creative Director and oboist of the ensemble, plays the biggest role in the making of Southern Cross Soloists. Tania shares her journey of becoming a professional oboist and the success story of Southern Cross Soloists.
"We are the ensemble in residence at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and this is our 20th year. We were founded in 1995, it was basically a group of friends of professional musicians who wanted to do some excellent chamber music, but since then the ensemble has grown from strength to strength and now besides our flagship concert series at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, we also run a world class famous music festival at Bangalow in New South Wales and we also run a music school for high school kids."
{youtube}Nut2LGGKnJI{/youtube}
When asked about her love for music Tania answers that she grew up in the world of ballet as her mother was a ballet pianist. Since five, Tania was doing a lot of ballet classes and playing some walk-in parts in the Queensland Ballet. "So I think it came from dancing really and the fact that my mother was a pianist. I started playing the piano and the clarinet when I was 9 and then when I was 14 I took up the oboe and it just really clicked with me, it was just immediately a comfortable instrument for me and I really improved quickly, so that's when I decided I actually wanted to be a professional musician,” Tania reflects.
Realising a true calling is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck, Tania had never heard the oboe or a good oboist before playing in the youth orchestra on clarinet. There she fell in love with the instrument and its solos. "At school, there was this horrible old oboe in the cupboard at, and I said to the school music teacher I'd like to have a go. He said 'look, I can't teach you that, you'll have to go to a private teacher'.
Tania Frazer“So I went off with this funny oboe to one of the orchestra players and he said 'you can't play on that, it's warped!'" Tania laughs. "So my parents luckily bought me a plastic instrument and I started learning on a plastic instrument when I was 14, but with one of the players from the Queensland symphony as my teacher. So I got great tuition right from the beginning, so it all clicked.”
A lot of preparation has gone in to making sure that the SC Soloists 20th year will be a year worth remembering. "We've had an absolute star-studded year. At our QPAC series, we've had, instead of just three guest soloists, we've had six guest soloists. The last concert of the year comes up at the end of November; the concert series all year has been very exciting and sold out!
{youtube}vbLz7J6i4ww{/youtube}
"We try to break down that sort of barrier of snobbery or elitism with the music, where we like to talk to the audience and sort of give them an up close and personal view of the musicians and the guest soloists.
“When you go to see an orchestra, the guest soloist usually comes in and does a bar and plays and goes off again. But with us, we talk and they talk, and there's a bit of banter between the players so the audience always feels that we are all friends and they're all part of it. It's sort of a three way relationship, between the audience, Southern Cross Orchestra and the guest artists; so it's a very entertaining experience."
Southern Cross Soloists play Redland Performing Arts Centre 24 October and Queensland Performing Arts Centre 22 November.
