Well, hello! Welcome to the UPBEAT CBR website! Great to have you here. We hope we can get to know each other face-to-face or online via some of our upcoming events, programs and activities.

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UPBEAT started in May 2020 as a humble e-newsletter by Canberra singer, songwriter and creative freelancer, Ruth O'Brien. Even though the music industry was decimated by COVID-19, Ruth was still regularly seeing opportunities in music and the arts that musicians could apply for and get involved with. These opportunities were not being widely promoted in the ACT, so from there, Ruth decided to put together a fortnightly mailout full of information about jobs, grants, competitions and festival applications. The subscriber list quickly grew to more than 800 people and it became clear that, with a 42% open-rate, there was clearly a hunger for this information. 

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In 2023, Upbeat CBR is expanding to be more than a fortnightly newsletter. For her entire time working in music and the creative industries, Ruth has seen a severe lack of education about basic business skills in the arts, particularly in music. As a result, Upbeat CBR hopes to fulfil the need of musicians of all background, levels and genres to look at their music from a business perspective and figure out where they might need to upskill, delegate and outsource day-to-day admin, business and other tasks in order to build a sustainable music career.

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Our mission is to assist musicians and music industry workers of all backgrounds with skills that will help further their careers by providing accurate information, networks, peer support, accountability and community. We do this through coaching and mentoring, programs, classes and events.