Serse!

Hello there,

Sorry it seems like it has been forever since I've posted on my blog. I've been so busy getting ready for the opera I performed in this past weekend (Handel's Serse) that I haven't had much time to think about anything else.

But now it is finished...And I feel so weird (and relieved)!  I have been rehearsing/getting ready for this opera since last summer, so it has been a long time in the making. Soon I will post some recordings from it...but for now all you get are a couple of pictures:

Me, Cara Gabrielson (Atalanta), Mariya Kaganskaya (Serse), Spencer Dodd (Ariodate) in the dressing room during intermission. 

And here is a picture of me with Corey Jamason (my director/conductor) after the concert: 

Some of my family came out for the performance, and on Saturday we toured around the city together a little bit.  

Me, my Mom, and My Grandma in front of the Golden Gate Bridge at Vista Point. 

My sister Rachel, my cousin Bradley, and me. 

All of us at dinner (my dad is in the top left). 

After the concert, we went to Visalia, California, and visiting my Great-Grandpa Curly, who is 98 years old, and doing amazingly well.  

He likes to hear me play piano so I performed some things on his keyboard which he recorded with his digital camera.  :-)

Me and the fam. 

                That's all for now!   :-D

Results...

I didn't win the competition. :-(      I was really sad about this one because it would have been so amazing to have had the experience of both singing AND playing piano with the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra.    But, you win some, you lose more.  That's the way it always is.   Hopefully I'll have the chance to sing my "Quatre Chansons de Ronsard" by Darius Milhaud with another orchestra someday.

I am grateful for the experience, though.  I really learned a lot, and I felt more expressive and like a better performer onstage as a singer than I have ever felt before in my life.  I am starting to learn how to use my body, my arms, my face, to really express while I sing.  I am starting to be able to be an actress while I stand alone onstage, imagining an entire scene before me and pretending that I actually see it.  I am starting to feel much more at home as a singer.

And you know what?  I really love it.   I love singing for people.     People here are always asking me why I "switched" from piano to voice.  But I didn't switch.  I do both.  I love both.  I sing. I play the piano.  I don't play the piano as much as I would like to these days, but I still am a pianist and I want to perform more!!   I want to sing more, I want to play more.  I want to write more.   I want to go more places, and make more music.

Off to practice... 

Good news!

Hey everyone-  Just a quick post to let you know that I competed Monday in the Conservatory's Voice Concerto Competition....And I made it to the finals!!!

  The final round is tonight at 7:30 in the concert hall. There will be three of us singing our selected pieces all the way through with piano accompaniment.

Keep your fingers crossed, send good thoughts, and say a prayer for me that I can do my best!!!!  

AAAAAAAA!  

Time keeps Rolling

I can't believe how fast time is going.  My last semester at the San Francisco Conservatory begins next week.

Today I had my first coaching with Corey (the Baroque Ensemble/Opera director) since before Christmas break.  It went pretty well, I thought.  I was happy because he said that one of my cadenzas that I wrote for one of my arias "made his day".  He said it's a little bit out of character for the piece...but he thinks he is going to let me do it, anyway. 

Last night I was goofing around in the lobby at the dorm with my friend Prawesh, who is from Nepal.  I was singing some songs and then he asked me if I could sing a song he really likes and he could record it.  We made a silly little video...which I then posted to my vlog on Youtube. Here it is:

I'm sure my pronunciation is awful!  But what would you expect for a first-time 15-minute lesson in another language?


I have been getting really stressed and worried lately about what on earth I am going to do after I graduate in May to make a living... I would like to stay in San Francisco, if possible...but everything is insanely expensive here so I have been concerned about what I will do.  Of course I want to devote myself full-time to my music, but at the moment, nobody is paying me for the  hours I spend practicing (hopefully one day, hehe), so I'll have to find a way to make ends meet in the mean-time.

I've been worrying about it, but then all of the sudden yesterday I felt really happy...realizing that once I am out of school, I actually will be able to devote myself full-time to finding work, and to developing a career that can support me.  So there is no point in being worried right now.

Even if I had to work for minimum-wage for a while somewhere (which I don't think I will because I already have a teaching job that pays more than that where I could get more hours), I think I could find a way to survive here, getting a roommate and sharing a house or an apartment together. So everything will be alright.

I really want to stay and keep studying voice with Jane, because I feel like she is helping my singing immensely.   There are also just lots of wonderful opportunities to make music with other wonderful musicians, opportunities which would be difficult, if not impossible to find if I were to move back to Montana or a similar place.

So here I am.  And we will see what happens.  For now I just need to PRACTICE.  AAaaaaaaa!!!

Ciao for now...  

Semester Finished!

I am very happy to announce that my semester has ended!  I gave my final singing evaluation on Tuesday this week, and it seems to have gone pretty well.

I was so happy because I got back my comments from the vocal faculty yesterday and they were more positive about my singing than they have ever been before.  I know I have improved a lot this year, and it is so gratifying to know that the improvement is showing.  I am so grateful to Jane and my other teachers that have helped me over the years, who continue to help me and guide me.

I sang a song by Copland, called "Why Do They Shut Me Out of Heaven?"  The lyrics are from a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Do you want to read my comments?  I can type them up for you.  Hopefully that's not being too egotistical...I am just so happy about them.

 But first I should give you the lyrics to the song because a couple of the faculty members made funny references to them in their comments:

Why do they shut me out of heaven?
Did I sing to loud?
But I can sing a little minor,
Timid as a bird.
Wouldn't the angels
Try me just once more?
Just see if I troubled them -
But don't shut the door, don't shut the door.
Oh, if I were the gentlemen in the white robes
And they were the little hand that knocked,
Could I forbid, could I forbid, could I forbid?
Why do they shut me out of heaven?
Did I sing too loud?

Okay. Here are the comments:

Daniel Mobbs: Great English diction. nice long phrases - Well done!  Enjoy your break!

Sylvia Anderson: Excellent presentation of this wonderful song! Your talent shows forth!

Cesar Ulloa: You have a very sweet voice. Very expressive and musical -- Great job! Keep up the good work you are doing with your teacher!

Leroy Kromm: Very nice! Very good sense of pitch. Great musicality.  Good improvement. Keep up the good work to maintain good breath management! Merry Christmas -

Jane Randolph (my teacher): Well, you were incredibly musical, but you were not aware of your low support and you definitely had to make space as a result -

Cathy Cook:  Great job - wonderful improvement and progress this semester - it's really coming along! keep up the great work!!

Patricia Craig: Nicely sung! Pretty, silvery sound!  Have a good break -

Ruby Pleasure: Why do they shut me out of heaven?  I would let you in.  We know that you have the highs and flexibility but I'm enjoying the warmth I'm hearing.

Pamela Fry: Your voice has grown so much! It's not too loud, just beautiful! Way to go! Don't check yourself out -- just let it go - you're such a good musician, just trust it and let it go - have fun!


I found it amusing how Jane was definitely my worst critic, which is of course her job.  I am so grateful for her perfectionism.  It is obviously doing good things for me.


Now I have just one more semester to go.  I feel really ready to be out of school next year.  I decided not to apply for the Post-Graduate Diploma right now at the conservatory because I just can't see myself going into more debt at this point.  I think I might try to work next year as a vocal coach and piano/voice teacher in San Francisco....But it will be hard to pay for an apartment because rent has gone WAY up in San Francisco in the last couple of years.   So we'll see how long I can survive.

I am excited though!

New Song! "Come and Walk With Me"

I was up ALL night the night before last, trying to get my final project done for my recording class which was at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning. And here it is... a song I wrote a year and a half ago that I just recorded for the first time.  There is still a lot of work I want to do on the mix... But right now I still have finals and juries coming up and I am just too excited to not show you guys what I have been working on.  So here you go:

Learn how to make a free Electronic Press Kit

First Orchestra Rehearsal!

Oh my goodness!!!  I sang for the first time in my life today with an orchestra behind me... and it made me soooo happy.  I was pretty nervous, but then I got up there and all of the sudden I felt really good and like, this is where I belong.   So happy.  All of the sudden all my performer/pianist instincts kicked in and I thought, I know what I'm doing here.  It was a lot of fun.

Watch this and you will hear the first note to ever come out of my mouth accompanied by an orchestra:

http://youtu.be/wk_XpG_ToNs

http://youtu.be/9NL4UnD8tak

http://youtu.be/3mGkosHj9d0

Random-ness!!! And Kermit.

Oh my goodness!  I can't believe that the semester is almost over already.  I actually only have about two more weeks of class, plus a week for finals and a little break for Thanksgiving.   I WILL SURVIVE!!  :-)

I still need to learn most of my music for juries though (for those of you who don't know what a jury is in music school: it's where you have to sing a few songs at the end of the semester for all the teachers on the voice faculty, in order to receive part of my semester grade).


Did I ever show you what I bought from a lady on the street in San Francisco?  I was coming out of the conservatory one day and she had a bunch of puppets that she had made by hand... Including one of my favorite characters from my childhood:

That's right. It's Kermit.  

He was only $15. 

Kermit I had some fun Skyping together with my little niece. 

     I once had a hand-writing analysis done when I was at some sort of fair somewhere...(my brothers and sisters and I all did it... We had to write a few sentences and they put our writing samples through some sort of machine where it listed our personality traits supposedly from analyzing characteristics of our handwriting).   One of the things it said about me is that "You cheer yourself up by indulging in whims."  I had never thought about that before, but it is VERY true.  I don't remember anything else the handwriting analysis said. But that one was right on.

         Here's another whim.... Big, dangly earrings for which there are not many occasions to wear in public...    Next singing performance maybe :-)

Oh life.   I manage to keep myself entertained in the midst of it. 

Stream of Consciousness

Oh, Little Life of Music... Aren't you full of trouble? But everyone has it, everyone goes through it.

We are not alone in our solitude.

I am a dream, you are the waking,

I am a scheme, you are the making,

I am a heart, you are the breaking,

I am a hope, you are the taking.


Do you care if I ramble?  What if I scramble through a bramble?  What if I fall into a shamble?

Do you mind?

This is my mind you are reading...

You are reading my mind.

I'm sorry if I'm winding, down a twisted road

Sometimes we do that, in finding our

True home.

Are we ever home?

It feels like I'm a wandering

Minstrel

Singing in a different town,

Every day,

Looking for a softer bed to rest my weary head.

But everywhere I carry

My little mandolin,

And I play, and I play,

And I play.  

This is my life, I say.

This is my music.

This is my life: my music.  

Walls

Sometimes in life it seems like you just keep hitting walls...or maybe the walls keep hitting you?  Somehow you keep running into the exact same trouble, trying and trying for years to overcome the same problems, the same weaknesses.

It's hard to be an artist.  It's hard to be a human being...a human being who needs things like, food, and sleep, and love, and exercise, and music, and accomplishment, and relationships, and fun, and relaxation, and meditation, and change, and constancy.  It is hard to be human...because we are all human, and we are constantly moving and searching for our needs and trying to provide for the needs of others and somehow always being not quite competent at either.

Life is hard for humans.

But of course I would rather be a human than any other creature.  Especially since I have known the joy of making music...and now I would be absolutely miserable without it.  It's such a constant nagging in me...and I HAVE to do it, one way or another. Whether or not I'm ever really "famous" or "successful" at it, I still have to do it, no matter what.  I have to keep improving my craft, keep expressing myself through this beautiful and amazing art form.  I HAVE to, you know?  I just cannot imagine myself ever devoting myself to something else instead.  Not in this life, anyway...

So even when the walls are there, I cannot stop. I'll keep beating my head against them until either they break, or I am dead. :-)

I will do this thing.