Kris Stewart is a senior creative and cultural leader who has had great success taking organizations through periods of change or growth, and in launching new initiatives such as the founding of festivals and major events.

 

Currently, he is the Chief Executive Officer at QMusic, the peak body for Queensland’s music industry.

 

QMusic is the statewide industry development and advocacy body for the music sector, and here Kris has led a series of key programs, including:

 

• BIGSOUND, the largest music industry event in the Southern Hemisphere

• GOOLWAL GOOLWAL, the global First Nations led music export program

• Festivals such as Valley Fiesta, Big Summer Block Party and Townsville’s Tropic Fiesta

• the Queensland Music Awards and the Billy Thorpe, Carol Lloyd and Grant McLennan Fellowships

• QMusic Connect, the statewide sector development series, and

• the Parliamentary Friends of the Music Industry with the Qld State Government.

 

His advocacy efforts can be seen in funding uplifts for BIGSOUND, for the establishment of new initiatives such as the $7m funding program to rescue music venues decimated by COVID; the Performing Arts Market Development Fund; the $1.6m Qld venues support package; the Federal Live Music Australia Revive Live program; and he offered key testimony in the Federal Government Inquiry in Live Music.

 

In September 2022 Kris re-launched BIGSOUND after three years of COVID cancellations, presenting a daytime conference and networking event with global thought leaders and brands that flowed into an evening showcase festival featuring more than 180 bands across 23 venues. More than 1000 artists and 3000 Conference and Showcase participants attended from more than two dozen countries.

 

Previously, Kris acted as Artistic Director of The Brisbane Powerhouse, Queensland’s home for contemporary cultural practice, where he led a team of 42 staff programming two main stage theatres and three additional venues, as well as an outdoor venue and a venue-wide gallery space. Brisbane Powerhouse was visited by more than 700,000 people annually, experiencing 1000+ ticketed performances, 145 free events and a further 380+ corporate events.

 

In his eight years as its artistic leader, more than 1 million people bought over $60m worth of tickets to Brisbane Powerhouse projects, and under his guidance Brisbane Powerhouse achieved:

 

• 91% growth in local artists (from 737 in 2013 to 1408)

• Three consecutive record years for ticket sales, with 81% growth in ticket revenues (from $3.65m to $6.6m)

• 41% growth in total ticketed attendance (from 121,514 to 171,314)

• 83% increase in event and conference revenue (from $1.2m to $2.2m)

 

At Brisbane Powerhouse, Kris presented more than 2500 productions and 275 world premieres, which includes presenting premieres by cultural partners such as Queensland Ballet, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Camerata, Opera Queensland, Circa, Dance North, La Boite, Topology, The Australian Voices, The Good Room, JUTE Theatre, Playlab, and Polytoxic.

 

He launched a series of significant events at Brisbane Powerhouse, including WONDERLAND, Brisbane’s festival of circus, sideshow and spectacle, which featured 81 performances by more than 120 individual artists. This was followed with the launch of MELT, Queensland’s signature major event celebrating LGBTQI+ culture and creators.

 

Kris also launched the inaugural Queensland Cabaret Festival, delivering it in partnership with Queensland Performing Arts Centre, The Arts Centre Gold Coast and Queensland Conservatorium, and launched IRL Digital Festival, a new event celebrating the convergence between live arts and digital and gaming culture. This had more than 20,000 attendees and lead to partnerships with the Shanghai interactive Festival of Theatre, Ars Electronica, LA's iam8bit gallery and the creation of the Australian VR Film Festival.

 

Kris’ Writers and Ideas program saw more than 38,000 people come to see one of the 180 performances of thought leaders in conversation, including Eric Idle, Yotam Ottolenghi, Mark Manson, Jennifer Saunders, Ben Folds, Gloria Steinem, Johnathan Franzen, John Waters, and Mei Fong. The new program Powerkids: Little Artists at Play, a weekly free program for children under five, delivered 164 workshops to 54,170 children and their carers.

 

Kris also continued the legacy of significant existing events at Brisbane Powerhouse, such as the Brisbane Comedy Festival (which grew 40% under his direction, from 44,447 attendees to a record of 62,278), and hosting the Australian Performing Arts Market (the premier biennial industry event in the Asia Pacific region), World Theatre Festival, World Press Photo and Brisbane Portrait Prize.

 

In 2019 and 2020 Kris served as inaugural Creative Director of Curiocity Brisbane, Queensland’s premier event for technology and creativity, and prior to that he was Artistic Director and Chief Executive of The Festival of Voices, the national festival celebrating the instrument of voice, and in 2010 he founded The Sydney Fringe, as its CEO and Festival Director.

 

The Festival of Voices received a series of acknowledgments for its impact on Tasmanian culture and tourism, including the Qantas Australian Tourism Awards, and Australia Day Award for “Best Major Festival or Event”. The Sydney Fringe launched as a significant cultural event for the NSW alternative and independent arts sector from day one, with 700+ performances of more than 250 shows and events in 53 inner city venues, events that we’re seen by over 100,000 attendees.

 

After receiving the Sir Keith Murdoch Prize for Leadership and Innovation and a 2000 Churchill Fellowship for his work in new work development, Kris spent seven years in New York City as the founding Executive Director and CEO of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), the world’s largest annual musical theatre event.

 

Heralded by the New York Times as “2004′s rookie of the year in NYC theater” and Time Out NY as “the Sundance for musical theatre”, the New York Musical Theatre Festival featured 1197 performances of 133 new musicals that Kris commissioned, developed and/or produced, with a key highlight being the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal and receiving the $100,000 Jujamcyn Theaters Prize.

 

While in NYC Kris founded his production company Red Sand Media Partners, which was a producer of the TONY nominated and Obie and Drama Desk award winning Broadway musical [title of show]: A New Musical.

 

Kris returned to Australia from NYC in 2009 to be the Australian resident director of the musical Wicked, before returning to the cultural industry work that he loves.

 

He has partnered and co-presented with arts venues as The Barbican, The Southbank Centre UK, The Taipei Digital Arts Centre, MONA, The London Natural History Museum, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, ARS Electronica, The BANFF Centre, and Joes Pub – The Public Theatre NYC. And nationally, Brisbane Powerhouse partnered with events such as The Melbourne International Comedy Festival; The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe; The Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Auckland Festivals; Sydney Mardi Gras and Midsumma; The Dublin Fringe; The Melbourne & Sydney Writers Festivals and The Brighton Digital Festival.

 

Kris holds a key interest in sector leadership and is a board member of the Sunshine Coast Arts Advisory Board, The Empire Theatre (Toowoomba), the National Film and Sound Archive Advisory Panel and the Queensland Community Benefit Fund. Previously he has served on the boards of PAC Australia, the peak body for Australian Arts Centres, Stage Queensland, the Queensland Conservatorium Arts Advisory Board and the QUT Creative Industries Advisory Board and has been a Peer Assessor for the Australia Council, for the Australian Department for the Arts and for Arts Queensland, as well as the curatorial panel for the Australian Performing Arts Market. He has served on judging committees for the Macarthur Fellowship, The Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize and the Helpmann Awards.

 

On a personal level, Kris continues his practice as a working artist, having directed more than 60 productions for companies as diverse as Gordon Frost Organization, Opera Australia, Melbourne Theatre Company, Opera Queensland, and the International Management Group, and he has consulted on Cultural Development for the City of Melbourne, City of Sydney, Brisbane City Council and Hobart City Council.