If you search “free resources for artists” into the search engine of your choice, you will find thousands of pages, all pointing in different directions.
While we haven’t seen everything, here are a couple of things we like that might be interesting for you too.
1. Tête à Tête archives
Tête à Tête has the world’s largest online archive of new opera recordings, and they’re all available for free.
With recordings of almost all our past festival shows and our in-house productions, it’s a wonderful way to get a sense of what’s been going on in new opera.
You can also use it to see how individual festival artists grow and develop over the years, and the start of ideas that have bloomed out all over the opera sector.
A personal favourite example is BabyO, where Scottish Opera’s Festival idea became an internationally-touring show. A few years after its success, I was asked to write an opera to support infants’ development through its story, interactions, and other elements. I knew exactly where to look to find the thing I was being asked to copy find inspiration from.
(Over on our sister site, My New Opera, you can see operas grouped by genre and theme, giving a sense of different trends and how they’ve evolved.)
2. Freelancers Make Theatre Work
Freelancers Make Theatre Work is a volunteer-led organisation, founded in 2020 to advocate for freelance artists across the arts sector (with our very own Bill Bankes-Jones as a founding member and ongoing contributor).
They’ve continued their work ever since, including creating a great selection of practical resources for artists to use. Their collection includes wellbeing resources, information about funding and advocacy bodies, and much more besides.
They also publish research on the state of the sector for freelancers, which can be a very useful way to both affirm a sense that you’re not alone in many problems you might be facing, and a way to identify areas people working with and for you might need support.
3. Open Hire
Open Hire is a very simple solution to a common problem in the arts: how is anyone, especially those from marginalised backgrounds without access to people and the often-assumed knowledge of how the sector works, meant to get a job?
Open Hire tries to make sure that it’s what you know, not who you know. It’s mostly focused on offstage jobs, like directing and stage management, and is a key part of a growing trend towards making sure that jobs are advertised where possible.
It’s very easy to sign up and state your preferences, and hopefully a useful tool for anyone looking for work in the new year.
What are your favourite resources for artists? Let us know @teteateteopera on social media.