You don’t have to look very far in the UK’s opera world to find someone who started their career with BYO. Onstage, backstage, in the rehearsal room, the dressing room and in front of the orchestra – for more than 25 years we’ve been helping young people find their feet in the professional world.
about byo
what we do
BYO is the UK’s national training opera company, a place for young people who are in that awkward stage between education and proper working life where they can kick-start their careers. That’s what the ‘youth’ in our name refers to – not age, but the fact that our participants are all at the beginning of their lives in opera.
The way we help varies. For singers it might be big-stage experience for the first time and being seen by agents and casting directors. For directors, designers and conductors it might be mentoring, networking and the opportunity to create their own work. For stage manangers it might be industry contacts, work experience and technical learning.
More than 5,000 young people have benefitted from British Youth Opera’s training. Wherever you go in the opera world, you’re bound to fnd some BYO alumni, either backstage or on it.
widening access
Our Serena Fenwick programme develops the careers of people who can’t access more ‘traditional’ routes into their chosen careers for personal, financial or logisitcal reasons.
In 2024 our intake includes 15 young stage managers with little or no professional experience – they’ll leave the programme with everything they need to get their first stage management job.
Plus eight singers joined the programme from a diverse range of backgrounds, including care leavers, disabilities and caring responisbilities.
digital first
The next generation of singers, directors, designers, stage managers and music staff grew up online and so that’s where we are too.
BYO hub is our online training portal, offering online learning, career events and applications to BYO’s face-to-face programmes to tens of thousands of visitors each year.
new creative pathways
In 2023 we asked young opera directors, conductors and designers what they needed most to be able to grow their careers, and their answer was overwhelming – they needed opportunities to direct, conduct and design their own productions.
Our summer productions are created entirely by the young professionals on our programmes, with support, guidance and mentoring from some of the biggest names in opera. It’s a real and tangible way for young creatives to build and showcase their skills, launching them as ‘names to watch’ in the opera wolrd.
alumni
We’ve been serving the UK’s opera industry for over 30 years. And with hundreds of participants passing through our programmes every year, our alumni are everywhere – planning, creating and performing the work that keeps our opera scene vibrant and thriving. And they all built the foundations of their careers here at BYO.
selected alumni highlights
how we got here
BYO was started by British MP Denis Coe in 1987. He’d seen the work of National Youth Theatre and the way that it helped its participants thrive in an incredibly competitive industry. He set up BYO as a similar kind of 'bridge' organisation, to take what singers, directors, conductors and other young professionals had learnt at college or university and help them use it in a professional setting.
Our alumni singers include Peter Auty, Lucy Crowe, Rosemary Joshua, Katarina Karnéus, Sally Matthews, Christopher Maltman, Claire Rutter, Nicky Spence, Matthew Stiff, and Mark Stone. Alumni from our creative and technical programmes has gone on to work at the Royal Opera House, National Theatre, English National Opera and opera houses and theatres around the world.
who we are
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Anna Patalong
chief executiveCharles Lewis
head of communicationsEmily Louise Palmer
general managerCarla Pannett
development associateKezia Bienek
fundraising ambassador -
President
Dame Sarah Connolly DBE
Vice presidents
Dame Janet Baker CH
Susan Bullock CBE
Lucy Crowe OBE
Chevalier Jose Cura
Timothy Dean
Edward Gardner OBE
Professor Dame Jane Glover DBE
Sir John Hannam
Dame Felicity Lott
Valerie Masterson CBE
Hugh Merrill MVO
Rt Hon Baroness Perry of Southwark
Peter Robinson
Nicky Spence OBE
Sir John Tomlinson CBE -
Chairman
Sir Richard Greenhalgh
Trustees
Claire Barnett-Jones
Richard Brooman
Julia Burbach
Holiday Donaldson
Tessa Marchington
James McNaught-Davis
John Richards
John Rothenberg
Jennifer Smith
Simon Spence KC
John Sunnucks
Toby Young -
29 May 1961 Charitable Trust
The Fidelio Charitable Trust
The Golsoncott Foundation
Idlewild Trust
The Rothenburg Foundation
Stichting Horizon