Sunday, September 30, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Sisterly Love
Rachel wrote a song for me earlier this year when I was about to leave for a month to go to San Francisco for my concerto peformance. I told her I liked it so much I wanted to stick it on my blog. So she let me record it, and now I'm posting it up here for all of you to see! :-) She is a very talented little singer/songwriter.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Phew!
Okay, so Opera Direction class wasn't as scary as I thought today... I did stay up until 1:30 a.m. last night memorizing my aria, and then I slept for five hours before getting up to finish memorizing. But then I went to class, and I thought I was going to have to sing while we worked on staging with one of the student directors -- but it actually ended up being just a discussion about our understanding of our characters and the interpretation of the piece. I was relieved! But I'm glad I got the aria memorized, anyway. That's certainly no time wasted!
The aria is a duet from Massenet's opera, "Cherubin". I'm playing a famous Spanish dancer, named "L'Ensoleillad", who is being seduced by a 20-year old who has just been called into the army. . . The music is soooo beautiful. I'm excited to perform it. The performance will be November 18th.
I have been overwhelmed with my schedule lately, and I decided, reluctantly, to drop my composition class. Composing takes a lot of time and creative energy, and I am finding it's taking a lot of time away from both my piano and vocal practicing, which I can't really afford right now (since, after all, I am here for a performance degree).
I had a disappointing lesson with Paul last week (I was disappointing, not him), just because I hadn't practiced enough. And he basically told me, if I don't have enough time to practice, he doesn't want to waste his time spending an hour with me each week. It made me feel really terrible and depressed, even though I completely understood. But it made me realize I need to re-prioritize and trim down my schedule a bit, which is a good thing!
All things in their proper order. I will still keep working on writing and recording my own songs in my spare time, but without the pressure of having a major project due by a certain deadline.
Okay. I have to go decide what I am going to sing for the next Vocal Department Recital on October 11th!!
The aria is a duet from Massenet's opera, "Cherubin". I'm playing a famous Spanish dancer, named "L'Ensoleillad", who is being seduced by a 20-year old who has just been called into the army. . . The music is soooo beautiful. I'm excited to perform it. The performance will be November 18th.
I have been overwhelmed with my schedule lately, and I decided, reluctantly, to drop my composition class. Composing takes a lot of time and creative energy, and I am finding it's taking a lot of time away from both my piano and vocal practicing, which I can't really afford right now (since, after all, I am here for a performance degree).
I had a disappointing lesson with Paul last week (I was disappointing, not him), just because I hadn't practiced enough. And he basically told me, if I don't have enough time to practice, he doesn't want to waste his time spending an hour with me each week. It made me feel really terrible and depressed, even though I completely understood. But it made me realize I need to re-prioritize and trim down my schedule a bit, which is a good thing!
All things in their proper order. I will still keep working on writing and recording my own songs in my spare time, but without the pressure of having a major project due by a certain deadline.
Okay. I have to go decide what I am going to sing for the next Vocal Department Recital on October 11th!!
Stress!
Tomorrow morning I have a first staging for one of the opera scenes I will be performing in this semester, but I just got the email about it today so I am trying to quick memorize my aria!! And I caught a yucky cold this past weekend that made me miss my coaching on the music on Friday. Crazy this life! I just barely got the aria memorized about five minutes ago, and of course it's shaky. What do you think the best strategy for me to take over the next 8 hours before class at 9 a.m.? Should I just go to sleep and then wake up early and go through it a few times more before class? Should I stay up later and keep solidifying it? Should I go to bed for an hour or two and then get up and see if my subconscious has done some work on it and then re-affirm that work by going through it again?? I'm actually thinking of trying the latter.
Working under pressure like this is kind of a bummer, but I have to admit that when I was back in Billings I was really missing the excitement of performances and lessons and reasons to learn things and reasons to polish the music that I was working on. So, I will be grateful. Just pray for me that I can do okay over the next few days!
And my cold is still making my voice hoarse....
Working under pressure like this is kind of a bummer, but I have to admit that when I was back in Billings I was really missing the excitement of performances and lessons and reasons to learn things and reasons to polish the music that I was working on. So, I will be grateful. Just pray for me that I can do okay over the next few days!
And my cold is still making my voice hoarse....
Thursday, September 6, 2012
First Semester
Whew. Yesterday was the first day of class at the conservatory.
And it has been quite a whirlwind the last couple of weeks.
I auditioned for the Baroque Ensemble last week, and to my disappointment, was not admitted into the ensemble for this year. My audition did not go very well; for some reason I ran out of breath at the ends of about three of my phrases. I think I was really nervous, because I wanted to be in Baroque so badly. Isn't that ironic.
However, I did get selected for a callback for the Musical Theater Production of Sondheim's "Into the Woods". The callback auditions will be held on Friday. I have a callback for the role of "Rapunzel". Hopefully that goes well.
I also just got an email that I was accepted into an ensemble/class called "Operatic Stage Direction". In that class we will learn how to direct opera scenes, as well as perform in scenes that others are directing.
The rest of the classes I will be taking are: Basic Phonetics, where we learn how to write the sounds of speech using the International Phonetic Alphabet, Beginning French, Advanced Italian, Beginning Acting, a history class called "Orfeo's Lyre", Vocal Physiology, and a composition class called "Creative Uses of Electronic Music". Of course if I am accepted into the Musical Theater production I will be participating in that, as well. So it's going to be a very busy year. And then there are my regular voice lessons with Jane Randolph, piano lessons with Paul Hersh, and a weekly coaching with Tim Bach. Oh and one other class, Vocal Performance Lab every Wednesday afternoon.
I also got a job as the student assistant in the registrar's office. So I have been very busy helping get everything ready for registration, and then spending two full days registering all the students in the school (with the registrar and assistant registrar) for their classes for this semester. It's been intense.
Tomorrow I start with an early morning of French at 8:30am. I guess I'd better go get a little homework done before then.
Goodnight!
P.S. New reflections: http://jacquelynsreflections.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-live.html
And it has been quite a whirlwind the last couple of weeks.
I auditioned for the Baroque Ensemble last week, and to my disappointment, was not admitted into the ensemble for this year. My audition did not go very well; for some reason I ran out of breath at the ends of about three of my phrases. I think I was really nervous, because I wanted to be in Baroque so badly. Isn't that ironic.
However, I did get selected for a callback for the Musical Theater Production of Sondheim's "Into the Woods". The callback auditions will be held on Friday. I have a callback for the role of "Rapunzel". Hopefully that goes well.
I also just got an email that I was accepted into an ensemble/class called "Operatic Stage Direction". In that class we will learn how to direct opera scenes, as well as perform in scenes that others are directing.
The rest of the classes I will be taking are: Basic Phonetics, where we learn how to write the sounds of speech using the International Phonetic Alphabet, Beginning French, Advanced Italian, Beginning Acting, a history class called "Orfeo's Lyre", Vocal Physiology, and a composition class called "Creative Uses of Electronic Music". Of course if I am accepted into the Musical Theater production I will be participating in that, as well. So it's going to be a very busy year. And then there are my regular voice lessons with Jane Randolph, piano lessons with Paul Hersh, and a weekly coaching with Tim Bach. Oh and one other class, Vocal Performance Lab every Wednesday afternoon.
I also got a job as the student assistant in the registrar's office. So I have been very busy helping get everything ready for registration, and then spending two full days registering all the students in the school (with the registrar and assistant registrar) for their classes for this semester. It's been intense.
Tomorrow I start with an early morning of French at 8:30am. I guess I'd better go get a little homework done before then.
Goodnight!
P.S. New reflections: http://jacquelynsreflections.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-live.html
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