It’s nobody’s brief to help artists who are competent, busy, and in mid-career. We’re not young or new or famous; we may no longer be as photogenic as we were; we are hard-working but invisible to our colleagues and public for long periods of time if we are working abroad, or doing projects in the education / new music development sectors of the profession. We are off-radar, even when making liberal use of Twitter.

If we do manage to become visible for a few moments, how can we take advantage of this? The industry is undoubtedly more risk-averse than it was: not only is it safer to book someone who has done a role before but a voice that is typical of its Fach is safer than one that is more distinctive-sounding, irrespective of the quality of the singer. There seems to be so little will to extrapolate from one kind of singing to another or to imagine that a singer is capable of more than one style – a bel canto singer who can also do Handel? Unthinkable! There may come a point where, after more comments than can be borne about “if the voice was just a bit bigger/smaller/darker/brighter/rounder/squarer/lemony/spicy” etc it’s just time to throw in the towel and join the Police Force because it’s going to feel like one big group-hug in comparison to sustaining a singing career.

But what about those of us who are still here? How do we – who are often un-represented but still talented, not young but clean up well, not novel but with a wealth of experience to contribute – get anyone’s attention? We are doing all the right things – websites, YouTube, emails, newsletters – but can’t get through the firewall. I for one have neither time nor money to go and sit on the doorstep of every potential employer, because I am busy keeping food on the table. But I can’t escape the latent fatigue and, yes, resentment of having to do it all myself, despite the psychological uplift provided by doing great work with great colleagues. Singers still have to play mental cat-and-mouse with issues of self-worth and critical voices even when they are on top of the world: the reality of slugging it out in the trenches doesn’t help matters, although we generally do develop life-saving gallows humour along the way.

So if you find yourself in a position of having largesse or patronage to bestow on artists, whether as fees or sponsorship, please don’t just make the most obvious choice without seeing who else is out there. The famous people are doing fine, in fact if they’re a New Generation artist, they’d probably really appreciate a night in front of the TV rather than learning another lieder programme from scratch in the next 24 hours. Trust your own ears and instincts and be prepared to defend a more imaginative choice. There’s a lot of range and talent out there and it would do everyone a power of good if some of it got heard.