FOR a partnership between commerce and the arts to be more than just a generous donation of cash that makes the giver look good and enables the recipient to make work, there has to be a benefit on both sides as well as a lasting influence of each upon the other.
In the terminology of the Arts & Business Awards this is Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, a category in the annual awards being announced and presented at Glasgow's Theatre Royal on October 24, but also qualities the organisation tries to recognise and nurture in all its brokering of relationships.
Simon Thoumire, creative director of Hands Up For Trad and architect of the Scots Trad Music Awards, explains why working with Gaelic TV channel MG Alba is in with a shout of the prize.
"They were our first brand sponsor and it is has been really good to have them and their outlook bringing a different perspective. They took the awards from being a big live show to what it is now with really high production values."
They have also taken the show on the road since they came on board. From its relatively small beginnings at Edinburgh's Queen's Hall in 2003, the awards have been staged in Fort William, Aberdeen and, this December, in Inverness.
"We were well-supported by people from the Highlands so it was wrong that we were Central Belt-based and good that we can now take the awards to them," says Thoumire.
He was inspired by seeing what the Canadians did with their East Coast Music awards, and MG Alba backed Thoumire's vision with a show that gets bigger every year, and which he has come to see as a Christmas party where trad music folk put their glad rags on.
"There's nothing else like it for people who are not really known for dressing up, and in order to get the music out we have to present it to the public, so I'm glad it is live on TV."
Noise Opera's association with Sloans bar in Glasgow's Argyle Arcade began because composer Gareth Williams wanted to stage a new piece there. Director Robert Carson explains the pub has gone from being intrigued by these arty types who arrived to perform a work that used stories of the history of the premises as well as of imaginary clientele, to becoming fully involved with the company and all its work.
Noise Opera has since taken the Sloans Project to Aberdeen and Edinburgh, but the bar's owners, Oli Norman and Stephen White, have helped find other sponsors to repeat the production in its original home as part of a fundraising evening, and White is now a member of Noise Opera's board.
"When they saw and liked the show, they got behind us and have provided rehearsal space and room for meetings," says Carson.
Although the company's next project is set on far-off Shetland, Sloans is still on board and hosted the first fruits of that work-in-progress this year.
The Herald is media partner for the Arts & Business Awards 2014. The other nominations in the Enterpreneurship/Sustainability category are Solstice Productions and Content Management Solutions and Film City Glasgow with Glasgow City Council's Energy Efficiency Unit.
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