Classical music is not the most common topic of discussion at Midem, but TrueLinked, a platform created specifically to aid the interaction of classical musicians with bookers and arts organizations, was the winner in the distribution & discovery category of Midemlabs, Midem’s competition for start-ups. The mix of site (TrueLinked.com) and social network provides a direct line of content between artists looking for gigs and buyers, events and venues looking to hire.
We spoke with founder and CEO Sune Hjerrild, an opera singer who created the platform to fill the void in his own career.
Life before TrueLinked: Hjerrild is an opera singer who graduated from the Cophenhagen Royal Opera in 2002 and has an international career. "I found out the hard way what it means to out there on your own,” says Hjerrild, who auditioned for an agent in France and immediately got to work. When she closed her agency, her contacts -- and his gigs -- also shut down in that country. “It was obvious to me that if the agent kept all the connections, that was a dead end. And that’s just one example.”