Leaving on a jet plane

In about thirty-six hours I will be boarding a flight to go to San Francisco... I'm so excited!  I almost can't believe it's already been six months since I was there... and then on the other hand, it seems like it's been a year already. 

I have two lessons scheduled with Paul, for Thursday and Saturday.  Saturday evening will be Hannah's concert, and then I think we are all going to go out for dinner.  That will be fun!    Yoshi, my chamber music coach from my first semester, will come too.

I'm so nervous to play for Paul again!  It has been quite a while since I have had a lesson with anybody, or performed my concerto for anyone... but that's why this is good for me, right?

I asked my friend, Anna if she could listen to me play through the concerto tomorrow before I leave for SF the next day... at least then I can be a little nervous again, and see if and where I have trouble.


I've been working on a number of new original songs recently, which I am excited about.  I feel like my improvisation on the piano needs to get a little better before I can make a good recording of them though.  But all things come in time, right?

Okay --  I'm going to go play through my concerto before I head to bed.

Goodnight!



 

Second Scarlatti

Here is the next Scarlatti video from my recital... a slow one in B minor.  So beautiful!!!  I love Scarlatti.

       
       Just a few minutes ago I pressed the "submit" button on my application for the voice program at SFCM!!  I'm so excited.   Now I have a couple more applications to do.  I'm pretty sure that I want to go to San Francisco but I need to give myself some options.  So I think I may apply to the Boston and New England conservatories.  One never knows what will or won't work out...

       In only a week I will leave for my short trip to SF...    I have a lot to do before then!   Number one, practice!   I haven't been doing enough of that lately and I really do not want to embarrass myself when I play for Paul...

       The weather has been so beautiful here lately... even if a bit cold.   About three weeks ago, I woke up to go to ballet class, and there was the most beautiful soft, fluffy snow falling everywhere around.  I put on my sandals to go outside (I hadn't bothered even a couple of weeks ago to find my winter shoes yet!).   The sky was clear in the morning air and the sun was rising so everything was a little sparkly.  It was so beautiful and relatively warm (for it being snowy!), that I just stood out there for several minutes in my sandals as the snow fell around me.   Then I got in the car and left for ballet, and didn't even bother changing my shoes.   I was certain the snow would quickly melt under the rising sun... but much to my surprise, I came out of ballet only one hour later to find my car buried in three or more inches of snow!    So my feet turned into snowballs walking through it in my sandals.   Still it was so beautiful I really didn't mind. . .

        Time to get some sleep.    Goodnight!

         

Scarlatti!

I'm finally getting around to posting a couple of Scarlatti sonatas that I played in my recital this spring.  Here is the first one up:

And another aria

And here is another!  This is the "Bell Song" from the opera Lakme by Delibes.

New Aria

New video up - I was working on videos ALL day and night last night because I had a prescreening recording due today for SFCM.  This is me singing the "Willow Song" from the Ballad of Baby Doe, by Douglas Moore.  It's from the recital I gave two weeks ago to help prepare me for the Met Auditions. . .

Plans in the making

I don't remember if I wrote about this before, but just to fill you in to the plans I have been busy making for next year. . . .    In September and October I was very occupied working on my application for a Fulbright scholarship/grant to study abroad in Italy next year.  They will let me know in January if I am selected as a final candidate.   

But, since I don't know what the outcome of that will be, I am also planning to apply to a couple of different Master's programs now, in voice!   I called my teacher, Jane Randolph from the San Francisco Conservatory today, and talked to her about the possibility, and she seemed positive about the idea of me coming.  So I will definitely make an application to SFCM, and then a couple of other places I haven't decided yet (but I am hoping for SFCM...and/or Italy...!).  

And today I bought a plane ticket to go back to San Francisco for a few days in early December.  My friend Hannah Nicholas won the lower string concerto competition at the conservatory last spring, right after I won the piano concerto competition (both of us from Paul Hersh's studio!  - Paul, by the way, teaches both piano and viola at the conservatory.).   So I will go hear her play her concert on December 3rd.     While I'm there I will have a couple of lessons with Paul on my concerto and a couple of lessons with Jane on my Met audition program.   I'm excited - it will be nice to go on a trip and get back to the big city for a while (and out of the December weather in Montana!  :-).   

I've been working on getting a couple of other videos posted on youtube but for some reason when I put them through my software right now the sound doesn't come up matching with the video, so I have to work on that some more....

I have to get up early tomorrow to play the organ at church!   Goodnight...

New song...

I recorded this new song I wrote a few weeks ago but hadn't had the time to get it uploaded to Youtube until now.   Enjoy!

New poems

Two new poems on "Hear Me" :  http://jacquelynwrites.blogspot.com/2011/10/spider.html

http://jacquelynwrites.blogspot.com/2011/10/beauty-that-i-see-in-thee.html

Dancing

Since I've been back home in Montana, I started taking ballet again with my old ballet teacher.  I really love dancing, and I find that taking a dance class is one of the only ways that I can motivate myself to exercise regularly. 

I also decided to try a new type of dance for the first time - a beginning modern dance class on Fridays.   Since this is my first time dancing modern, I am taking the class with girls who are from ages 9-13.  The movements are really really different than ballet so I feel like it's taking me a while to get used to.   However last Friday in class my teacher, Ricki, asked me,  "Do you take ballet?"     "Yes,"  I said.  "Have you ever considered coming to dance with my Terpsichore dancers?"   I was surprised because "Terpsichore" is a small modern dance company that my teacher founded here in Billings, composed of about 8 women.  "No, but I'd love to!"  I said.    I went to a performance of theirs a couple of weeks ago and I really enjoyed it - the women were all really strong and the dancing was beautiful.    So now I am going to dance with them!  I am excited about that.
        I went to the first rehearsal on Monday night, and it was difficult.  The combinations are long and complicated, and it is hard for me to remember them.   And the other dancers are all very advanced and catch on really quick, so it makes me feel pretty dumb.   But that will get better with time, right?   Anyway, it was still fun and I am sure it will get more fun as I get better!   I am posting some pictures below of the dance company:  



The woman in the front of the picture above is my teacher, Ricki.

They are beautiful, aren't they? 

Change in Plan

Well, I've had to call off my audition this weekend for the Metropolitan Opera National Council.    I was supposed to be leaving today with my dad and my accompanist, Sandi Rabas.... However today my cough has gotten worse enough that I feel like I can barely speak two words without coughing and I have a headache and an earache... So altogether it's not looking so good.  

I tried singing a few things over the phone yesterday for my teacher Dennis and he was surprised, for as sick as I am, that I could do as much as I could do, but still some of the notes just didn't want to come out and it was really unpredictable when they would come out and when they wouldn't.

However all is not lost -- I plan to submit another application to compete instead in the Met auditions in January in Denver.  It's just that the trip is a little farther and it will be fairly close to my performance with the orchestra at the San Francisco Conservatory so it will be a little more stressful.   But I will have a lot of time until then to get my program really polished,  so maybe it is a blessing in disguise.

Now I think I'm going to take some Nyquil and go back to bed.