Meet Vennisa!

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Where in the world is Vennisa Santoro? We gave former SOAP President, UNSW Alumni and Australia Ensemble Stage Manager, Vennisa a call to have a chat about her uni days at UNSW, and where she is now!

Transcript

Eleasha Mah: Hi, I’m Eleasha Mah. You may have seen our next guest behind the scenes at our concerts. Today we’re speaking with Vennisa Santoro, Stage Manager and UNSW Alumni.

Vennisa Santoro: Hi everyone, my name is Vennisa, and you might have seen me on stage moving some chairs, stands, and maybe even the piano around at Music Performance Unit’s concerts, such as Australia Ensemble, Orchestra, Wind band and Choir.

Tell us about your day job?

VS: At the moment, I am working for Hayllar Music Tours as their Operations Manager and I get to organise a whole bunch of awesome arts luxury tours overseas as well as music tours for orchestras, choirs and schools.

Tell us about university life?

VS: I loved uni so much and there were so many highlights and I was involved in so many ensembles like chamber, orchestra, wind band, handbells and even jazz.

I was also the President of SOAP, as well for Orchestra and Wind Band and that was a lot of fun and was very insightful because I got to learn how auditions worked and communicate with the conductors and hire out the venue and things like that as well, which is really interesting.

Outside of music though, I was also very involved in ARC which was the UNSW student organisation where I was the Membership Engagement Officer, and so, many students might have seen the street team giving away free stuff on the walkway or the library, or anywhere throughout campus, so I would organise those events, and I got to organise Foundation day and the big round house party, as well which is really really cool.

Tell us about life since university?

VS: So when I graduated from UNSW with my music degree, I did the AYO Arts Admin for National Music Camp. From there I was very lucky enough to be selected to be Musica Viva Fellow where I was the Musica Viva Festival Co-ordinator for about 3 months, for their festival and then, after that I was like, I need a job! And then was very lucky to be full employed with Musica Viva for a few years working in education and then moving on to development. Since then, I am now working for Hayllar Music Tours as their Operations Manager and it’s a great job. I get to travel overseas and still be surrounded by music, and yeah experience music around the world.