Repetition

This happens to me all of the time: Something will happen, or be mentioned, or will come up once, and suddenly, it pervades my life.  Does this happen to everyone else or am I crazy?

That's happening with me lately.  With two things: curling and emoting.

Yes, curling.  Admittedly, this is silly.  But true.  Obviously, it's because of the Olympics that it's all anyone is talking about.  Especially the fact that a woman who is pregnant is competing in the sport.  I try to defend it, saying it's SO fun, but alas, no one believes me.  And there is no curling rink anywhere near to prove it to them.

In all seriousness, though, the other frequently-occurring theme in my life is the idea of emoting while singing.  Sounds easy, right?  Just act in accordance with what you're singing, right?  Maybe for some it's easy, but I'm struggling lately, and I don't think I'm the only one.  

The more I think about it, the more ashamed I am that I'm having problems in this area.  I started acting when I was in elementary school, and won awards all the way through high school for roles in one-act plays.  I was in 3 musicals at Jamestown and was cast in a 2 one-act plays while there, too.  I obviously am physically capable of acting. 

But what's preventing me now?  I have some ideas, which may be important, but I'm going to choose not to include them here.  The fact of the matter is that it's just not happening, and it's quite frustrating.  In the past few weeks, I can't even count how many times this subject has come up for me and others, which makes it stand out even more in my mind.  I've seen it in other people's lessons, movies, and am taking a class in which we have focused on the subject for literally a month now.  Maybe more than a month.

The point of this is that I'm working on it.  Hopefully, the next time you all see me perform (which I hope will be sooner rather than later), I will have improved.  Let's hope.

Dense

On occasion, I have been known to be a little thick-headed.  In fact, one of my closest friends in high school used to say, "You're the stupidest smart person I know." 

Now, not to say that I really am stupid, but I recently became aware that I wasn't aware of what some people might be thinking of my blog...  But I might be wrong.

A friend of mine (who is a loyal reader of the blog) lives in Denver and came up to Boulder on Thursday to see me sing in the Anderson competition.  After the competition was over, we went to Old Chicago to have a drink to celebrate my having won one of the scholarships.  While there, he made a comment that I think was meant as a joke, but I interpreted it as one of those jokes with an ounce (or more) of truth.

Basically, he implied that the blog was a source for me to brag about my accomplishments.  I only had to think about it for 2 seconds before I realized that anyone who reads my blog could definitely get that impression, and I didn't even realize it or think about it that way.

Let me put it this way, kids.  I've been amazingly fortunate since having come to CO.  Things have been working out for me in ways that are way better than I ever could have expected, and I love sharing the news.  I've been lucky not to have many bad occurrences to relate to you, and really hope that that stays the same.

But in the future, I'll watch my tongue! :)

 

Anderson

I know that it seems like a random name for a blog, but really it isn't.

I don't know who the Andersons are (were?), or what they do (did?), or what their connection to the music school is (was?), but they donated a lot of money to the College of Music.  There are a lot of Anderson scholarships given out every year.  A lot.  I don't know how many.  

Okay, I'm basically uninformed, in case you didn't notice.  But not completely.  Let me tell you what I do know.  

The non-voice departments give out their Anderson scholarships in some way that doesn't involve a competition (which I don't know).  The voice department, though, gives out their three $2,000 scholarships by means of a competition.  

Last Thursday, 15 or so of us competed in the preliminary round, which was judged by CU Voice faculty.  Seven of us, including me and Kenny, were selected to continue on to the Finals, which are tonight, judged by people from the outside.  And 3 of us will walk out with $2000 in scholarship money.

I'm pretty excited to have been chosen for the finals.  The only bad part of the whole deal is that it's formal.  Very formal.  For the participants, that is.  It left me a week to buy a dress, find jewelry, shoes, hairstylist, etc.  Yeah, I didn't go through all of that, actually.  

I feel like a bride.  You know: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue?  Well, I did buy a dress (thank goodness for credit cards and having multiple occasions to wear it), I'm wearing an oldish pair of shoes that I own, I borrowed some pretty spectacular earrings, and... well, I don't have anything blue.  And I'm doing my own hair.

In any case, I'm performing first, singing the same Schubert that I sang for my studio placement audition, as well as a piece by Amy Beach, which I sang for opera auditions.  Kenny's performing second.  

I'll let you know how it goes.  Wish us luck!

Famous?

Okay, really no time to write a real blog here, but I thought you all might enjoy this.  

If you watched American Idol tonight, you would have seen this guy.  He's famous around CU, not necessarily all for good.  I think he deserves a little more credit than he gets sometimes, but not all the time!

Please keep in mind that he isn't a true representative of music at CU, and this isn't what all of my friends are like.

Please ignore the fact that this is poorly formatted.

Confidence

When I was in junior high and high school, if you would have asked any of my friends or acquaintances to pick one word to describe me, I can almost guarantee you that one of the words that they wouldn't have picked would be "confident."  In the very least, I know that it wouldn't be one of the words that I would have used to describe myself.

That began to change in college, as I slowly came out of the woodwork. My freshman year, I was quiet and shy, especially around people who I didn't know.  As I joined more and more organizations and met more people, though, I slowly became more sure of myself.  By my senior year I was a member of many, many organizations, and within many of those I was elected by my peers into leadership positions where confidence was a must.  At that point in my life, I maybe would have called myself confident.  Or at least a little confident.

When I moved to Colorado, I took the attitude of "the new girl."  I'm not sure where I read about it, but the concept made perfect sense to me.  A lot of people are nervous, and therefore reserved when they are in new situations.  That would totally have been me if I wouldn't have made the conscious decision to do exactly the opposite.  As the new girl, I never said no to an invitation, unless I absolutely had to.  I did my best to put on a smiling face and to show a likable personality.  I didn't want to put out an air of being closed off or stuck-up.  Basically, I wanted to be liked.

I know how this will sound, but I don't mean it in an egotistical way.  My strategies worked.  It took little time for me to make a little group of friends.  If you'll recall, on our first night out, Kenny called me a "fag hag" because I had a big personality and appeared confident.  One of my friends is continually telling me about how he finds how "popular" I am to be amazing, considering how new that I am.  A guy who I hardly know came up to me one day and told me that he had been observing me and noticed that people "flock" to me when I'm hanging around.  However, the most obvious showing of my confidence happened last week, when I entered the world of a 20th century woman and asked a boy on a date!  It's been very exciting, and shocking, actually. 

While all of this has obviously been happening, I haven't really been aware of it.  Aside from my conscious efforts at making friends, I didn't know that I was gaining confidence.  It took people pointing it out to me for me to fully recognize it.  I still don't feel like I outwardly act different, but maybe I do...

In any case, the idea of me being confident was questioned during my auditions last week (the ones I told you about here).  A few days before the auditions, we had mock auditions in Opera Theatre class.  They were intended to be a leg-up for those taking the class (obviously, they didn't help me).  Following the mock audition, Dr. Holman sat each of us down for feedback.

Among the things that she told me that were very useful, things like wearing a dress in a solid color, using stage-ish make-up, and choosing heels, her words to me were along these lines: "I feel like your MO in life is to come into a room with what appears to be a lack of confidence, and then to the heck out of everyone with your voice."

Needless to say, with my newly-realized confidence, I was surprised at these comments.  I assured her that I wasn't aware of her perception of my level of confidence because I really wasn't confident in my early years, and that me being confident was something new to me and had changed recently.  I also told her that I feared coming off as overly-confident (and unwarrantedly so), but that I would work on it.

So, kids.  What do you think?  Am I confident enough?  Do I need to work on it?  What's the deal here?

Disappointment

Last fall, when CU was auditioning for chorus members for "La Traviata," I chose not to audition.  My name was on the audition list, I had a piece prepared to sing, and I had no doubt in my mind that I would be in the show.

Then I changed my mind.  At that point in my life, I had never once seen a live opera, and really wanted to see one before performing in one.  I crossed my name off the audition list, and never thought anything of it.

In the meantime, many of my newly-made friends auditioned and received chorus member parts.  Rehearsals were Mondays and Thursdays, and many of them would go out to eat in Boulder those nights, between school and rehearsal.  I took advantage of the invitation to go and went out with them, although I think I only actually ate with them once.  The rest of the time, I just enjoyed the company. It was a good time, and a good way for me to meet people, and it got me into the CU opera scene without being in the opera.  I didn't envy their weekly rehearsals or having to experience what is pleasantly termed "hell week."

What I did enjoy, though, was seeing my first ever opera.  I saw it on opening night with Jettie and Austin (read about Jettie's trip here and here), and adored every minute of it.  A lot of my enjoyment came from actually knowing the people on stage, but it really was an amazing show.  Having hung out with all of the opera kids allowed me to go to the cast party, and I met a lot of other people, and I never regretted not being in the opera chorus.  Not even for one minute.

Until this week.

Auditions were held for the two spring operas, "Don Giovanni," by Mozart and "Our Town," composed by Ned Rorem last Thursday. They ran auditions for the chorus of Don G. and principals and chorus of Our Town at the same time, and auditionees (?) just had to indicate for which roles they were auditioning.  I didn't prepare an aria from the show and didn't put any more effort into it than I have for any other audition since I've come to Boulder. 

I auditioned for all three possible roles.  To be honest, I simply assumed that I would get into at least the Don G. or Our Town chorus, although I knew I wouldn't obtain a lead in OT.  What I didn't know was that the chorus parts for both shows are relatively small.

I can say that I was very disappointed to see the cast list for Don G. without my name on it.  That was on Wednesday, and the list for OT was to come out on Thursday.  When that was posted and my name was also not on the list, I cried.  Literally.  Kenny tried to comfort me in many ways (mostly unsuccessfully), but here's what I've learned (in the short-term) from this experience.

• I can't rely only on my voice for forever.  I also need to rely on preparation and presentation. 
• I need to be prepared for competition.  And lots of it.  There are approximately 87 million sopranos (I made that up) in the world today, all vying for a small number of roles. I can't just expect to get one.  That's foolish.  And dumb.  And foolish.
• In that vein, I need to get used to this feeling of not getting roles.  It's going to happen a million times in my life.  It's part of what I've gotten myself into.
• Despite all of those things, I need to have confidence (you'll see a blog on that topic very soon).

In short, my plans for this semester have changed drastically, knowing that I won't be involved in any shows, which are more time-consuming than you can possibly imagine.  I can only hope that I will take what I've learned from this disappointment into the future...

But hopefully it doesn't always happen this way...

Hampson Master Class Follow-Up

As many of you know, I auditioned to be let into Thomas Hampson's Master Class on Monday.  The results were posted Tuesday, and I was not let in.  By coincidence, only grad students were let in.  Sad, but I'm okay with it.  I will still attend and (hopefully) learn from this very famous man.

Hampson Master Class

On October 11th, Thomas Hampson, one of the most famous American baritones, is coming to CU to give a concert.  Hampson is most well-known for his renditions of American songs, and this concert, entitled "Song of America" features only American songs. 

The day following the concert, Hampson will be giving a master class.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term (I actually had to google it myself... I only had a general idea of the defiintion), in a master class, someone who is an expert (or master - get it?) in their field gives lessons (or a class - haha) to people who aren't experts.  It's basically a fancy word for a lesson, but with someone who's a genius.

I'm not sure how CU usually does a master class, but for this one, students must be invited to audition to have a chance at getting into the class.  I think that usually, anyone can audition to be in the master class, and the top 6 are the ones who actually get to sing for the master.  This time, one must to be invited to audition.  Crazy.

What's crazier yet is that I was invited to audition.  Next week Monday, I'll be singing for the voice faculty, and if they choose me, the following Friday, I'll get to sing for Mr. Hampson himself.  Wish me luck!  I'll let you all know how it goes.

For more information on Thomas Hampson, check out his website.

Opera Theatre

Whew!  It seems like a while since I've written, and I have lots to write about, but not much time to write it in.  I'll start with opera theatre.
If you'll recall, last Monday, we had auditions for scenes opera theatre class.  I wrote a blog about it.  You should read it. 

The results of those auditions were posted on Wednesday.  I was cast in an amazing(?) role.  That I've never heard of.  What follows is true information.

The opera's name is Hansel and Gretel.  It was composed by Englebert Humperdinck.  I was cast as the mother.  My children are played by two Asians.  Girls.  Yes, that means a girl is playing Hansel.  You can't make this stuff up. 

I haven't been able to find a great recording of the song online, but if I do, I'll be sure to post it.