Connection

I know. It's been forever.  Again.  For those of you who continue to check for updates, thank you.  I apologize for not posting life stories, deep and meaningful comparisons of life in CO and life in ND, or media of recent performances.

It's possible (although not likely) that all of the above will come again sometime, if I ever find the time, energy, and inspiration to keep writing.  It's also possible that writing this entry will encourage me to write more. 

Until one of the above happens, this will have to suffice:

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I had one of those experiences this weekend that reminded me why I'm doing this whole music thing. 

One of the most important reasons that I'm following this path to what I hope will become a lifetime of performance is for the opportunity to make music that moves people to feel.  There are songs that have brought a huge smile to my face (see this), evoked tears (Adele makes me want to die), incited laughter (how could you *not* laugh at this the first time you hear it?), or made me want to shake my booty (although I can't do it as well as JLo).

But the beauty of music is that what those songs do for me could be entirely different from what they do for you.  We all connect to different things at different times, based on our past and present experiences.  It's powerful for me to hear a song that formerly meant nothing to me suddenly mean something and I enjoy exploring how that connection was created.  That connection is what makes music powerful.

Even more special to me than exploring that connection, though, is playing a part in the connecting.  

For those of you who don't know, I'm fortunate in that one of my sources of income is doing what I love: singing.  A local church pays me to attend weekly choir rehearsals and services to support the choir and sing a solo here and there.  It's very common in cities, although I'd never heard of such a thing when I was living in good ol' ND.  (I could write a whole blog on this topic, so I'm skipping over the details.)  

Due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, the song that we sang this past Sunday featured me as a soloist for 2 of 5 verses.  I sang, the choir sang, church went on, life was normal.  

Until after the service.  A man who I've seen in church every week approached our music director. I was near her and overheard him thank her for such beautiful music (she wrote the setting of the text).  He then pointed me out and said, "I don't know where you found her, but she's incredible."  He then turned to me for the first time and I saw tears in his eyes.  He then asked me, "Can I give you a hug?"  I smiled and replied, "Absolutely."  While we hugged the awkward hug of people who don't know each other, he thanked me and then walked away.

I should mention that seeing people cry almost always makes me cry, too.  But the tears in my eyes at that moment were out of gratitude and a tiny bit of shame.  Gratitude is obvious.  I'm grateful to be here, studying what I love, sharing beautiful music, working with my talent, connecting with people, etc.

But why shame?  I have to be honest with you: even to this moment, I have no idea what the text of that song was about.  I didn't give one thought to the text or its meaning.  I'm pretty sure that the only things that I was thinking about while singing were the notes, blending my voice to the section, and making sure that I was using good technique to create a smooth, even phrase with no major bumps or misaligned vowels. I never once looked at the congregation in an attempt to connect with them.

In light of the horrible performance practices outlined above, I never ever could have imagined that what we were singing about as a choir would have an effect on the people listening.  But it did.  A large effect.  It's humbling. 

This is a problem that we performers have.  We have to pay attention to the details to make technically beautiful and sound music.  We need to use good technique to preserve our bodies and minds.  We can't get so emotionally attached to the music that we get emotional in performance.  We MUST do all of those things.  But we do occasionally lose perspective.  We forget to look at the bigger picture, to think about the music as music itself, which is just as important as the details.  We sometimes forget that we aren't performing for ourselves, but for our audience.  (Every "we" in this paragraph should maybe be changed to "I."  I should speak for other performers.) 

Thankfully, our audience can be affected even if we aren't doing everything exactly right.  And we can't know if, how, or when we'll affect them.  We can just do our best and hope that someone is making some sort of connection to the music.  And when we do make that connection, we can be thankful for the opportunity and ability to have made it.  Connection, after all, is one of the best benefits of performing music.

My sincerest apologies

Oh, I really do apologize for hardly writing at all.  Okay, for really not writing at all.  I'm a horrible person.  Okay, I'm not a horrible person.  I'm just a very, very busy person.

Thank you to all of you who are continuing to attempt to keep in touch with my life via this blog.  You're keeping up with your side of the blogging game.  I, however, and not keeping my end of the deal.  

I hope to change that, from now on out.  I will put time into my schedule to blog at least once a week for you all.  I know that that's substantially less than last year, but I'm going to do it.  Notice that I said, "At least once."  It's the best I can do. 

Okay, okay, enough of my grovelling.  

Now for one of those really boring, really annoying, all-encompassing updates on the life of Raissa.

About a month ago, I was offered and accepted a job as a section leader in a choir at a church here in Boulder.  I attend weekly rehearsals and church services and get paid to sing.  Which is what I want to do with my life, so it's perfect.  Not to mention that the choir is small, but pretty darn talented and that the director has amazing ambition and a great vision for the choir.  It's an adorable church and a really great space to sing in, and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to be working with these people. 

I was cast in the chorus of CU's fall opera production.  Okay, so this year it's not so much an opera as a musical theatre piece, but if we focus on the important thing here, which is that I was actually cast, then we're thinking about the most important thing.  Rogers and Hammerstein's Carousel will be performed in CU's Macky Auditiorium on October 22, 23, and 24.  Visit www.cupresents.org to purchase tickets.  If my parents can make it all the way from ND, you can make it from wherever you are.  I'm singing a very small solo, so cheer loudly!  

I'm still working at the Center of the American West.  Sewing purses.  Don't get me started on that topic, because I might freak out.  But if you must know, I'll send pictures once they're completed.

Kenny and I have officially scheduled our junior recital.  We'll be performing on Tuesday, April 12th, at 7:30 pm in Grusin Music Hall.  Put it on your calendar now.  I don't want you to miss it.  We'll be singing some stuff together, which is very exciting, because he's a bass and I'm a soprano.  Oh, and because we both rock.  

The new apartment is still great as ever.  If I had a camera, I'd send you pictures, but if you'll recall, I put that camera through the washing machine last year in March-ish.  Mom, don't worry, a digital camera will be on my Christmas list.  Along with some other stuff that I'm sure you'll start asking about soon.

Okay, as far as broad overviews go, those are the most important things.  Keep looking for more frequent updates.  And thanks again for continuing to read through my excessively long hiatuses. 

Christmas is in the Air...

Today is a day full of Christmas celebrations, and every minute has been exciting for me.

Last week, I went into the Music Development Office to pick up the Christmas gift bag that every Adopt-a-Student Scholarship recipient gets.  While I was in there, Scott, the director of the office, said, "Raissa, do you have a church gig for this weekend?"  I didn't.  He said, "Do you want one?"  I did.  He explained to me that it involved one rehearsal and one performance.  I was more than welcome to help.  Then, he said, "Is $125 enough?"  Yes, please!

So yesterday morning, Kenny and I drove down to Golden for a rehearsal with the choir, and then again this morning for the performance.  (I got up at 6:00 am... BLECH!)  Our role was to help fill the sound of the choir so that it could be heard over the full orchestra that was entirely composed of CU music students.  The church has its own choir, we were just beefing them up a bit.

The performance was excellent; we sang for a full house.  And the choir members were really cute old people.  There was one man who always knew the exact page number and yelled it out at the top of his lungs, the very nice lady who sat beside me and told me about her squished boob, and Peaches, the black female tenor who always had a wisecrack at the best possible moment, among others.

After the performance, Kenny and I headed to Denver for the 35th annual "Tuba Christmas."  I had never heard of such a thing, but Kenny had been to one in Aberdeen. Tuba Christmas happens when literally hundreds of brass players: euphonium, tuba, sousaphone, etc., etc., etc. get together and play Christmas carols and hymns arranged for a tuba choir.

It was awesome.  I literally got the goosebumps every 5 seconds, and it wasn't because of the chill in the air.  The performers were everywhere from 8 to 85 years old and included families, friends, and people who had performed in up to 34 Tuba Christmases in Denver alone.  There were about 250 performers, and the conductors were the cutest old men ever.  I can't even describe how cute they were.

I was a little sad that the audience wasn't a bit more excited to be there.  Kenny and I had a great time singing along, which the organizers encouraged, but not many were singing.  In any case, the two of us had a great time.

We had to park pretty far away from the location where Tuba Christmas was held, and I had worn heels.  On the way back to the car, we had to cross several roads.  At one such road, we decided to cross just as the hand started flashing at us not to cross.  I took a step onto the street, then another...  Thn, I suddenly had no shoe.  The heel had wedged itself into a crack on the road, and when I kept walking, I lost my shoe.  So there I was, in the middle of the street in downtown Denver, with only one shoe on my feet, and the hand getting ready to tell us not to walk.  I was laughing so hard I could hardly contain myself, and so was everyone around us.  I finally rescued my shoe and ran across the street.  All I could say was, "I hope everyone who saw that laughed really hard."  

Now, I'm getting ready to head over to my church, ULC, for our Christmas Hymns and Reading service.  Because there will probably be no students here on Christmas, we are celebrating today by singing and reading traditional Christmas Eve stuff.  I'm leading a few hymns, chanting some antiphons, and singing "O Holy Night" for the Recessional.  They are going to record the service and give copies to alumni, so I'm pretty excited about it.

It's finally beginning to feel like Christmas around here...

Life Update (It's a doozy)...

A few strange things happened this week.

Okay, a lot of strange things...  The strangest of them all, though, are as follows:

• I didn't blog for over a week. Shame on me.
• People still checked out my blog to see if I had written.  Go you!!!

However, those are minor things in comparison to the roller coaster that has been Raissa's life recently.  I'll do my best to sum them up below.

Last week brought a lot of hype with the much-anticipated and yet much-dreaded Holiday Festival.  I had (obviously) never been in the Holiday Festival, but had heard a lot of bad things about it from upperclassmen.  Thinking about it, I mean, what good could possibly come from 300-400 musicians in the same room, at the same time, putting on the same concert 4 times?

I thought that the JC Christmas Concert was a hassle and time-consuming, what with a dress rehearsal filmed by PBS crews and having to do your hair and makeup the same way two days in a row so that they could take cuts from the rehearsal and the live performance.  Ha!  Not even.

The HF involved one 3 1/2-hour rehearsal on Thursday night, which was awful.  Standing for almost the whole time, rehearsing instead of running pieces, people not paying attention, dealing with "Betelehemu..."  It was awful.  We performed on Friday night, which was pretty bad again, but it was nice to sing for a sold-out crowd of 2000.  We performed Saturday afternoon to yet another sold-out crowd.  (Guess who forgot to put their phone on silent and received a phone call during the concert.  If you guess me, you're right.)  They fed us, we drank a little, and had a Saturday evening concert, which was also sold out.  Then, we had a sold-out Sunday afternoon concert. In all, we performed to over 8,000 people. 

It really wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.  There was a great variety of music, what with an orchestra, brass band, percussion piece, monster choir, small choir, and a few soloists.  My riser buddies made life interesting, and there was never a dull moment on the risers.  Sure, it sucked to stand for an hour and a half without moving, but whatever.  That happens.  And we didn't even have to sing well half of the time because of the audience sing-alongs. The audience loves the show and come back year after year.  I love watching crazies in the audience.  It's highly entertaining.

What did suck about it, though, was how gosh darn much of my time it wasted.  I was in the monster choir, composed of like 200 students, so really, I was useless.  No one would have noticed if I wasn't there, and I wasn't really necessary.  Not that I'm saying I want to stand out, but it makes one feel unimportant in a choir of that size.  And I got absolutely no homework done.  At least it was the weekend before the week before finals week instead of the weekend before finals week.

In addition to HF, I had to attend orientation at BR, where I was hired as a shift leader at a new store that is opening in Superior.  This job, even though I haven't actually started yet, has been a run-around ever since the interview, and as soon as I find something better, I will snatch it up.  I had the interview in October and the owner-manager told me that I was a top candidate.  I expected to start working within a few weeks.  A few weeks went by, and I heard nothing, so I emailed and still heard nothing.  I did another job search.

I finally got an email saying they would like to hire me, but that the store where I would be working wasn't even built yet, and that we would be training soon.  Well, here it is, 2 months (almost) after my interview, and we finally started training last weekend.  Saturday morning, I had to be in Longmont (a 20-minute drive) by 8:30 am.  I got there to find that my co-workers are literally all high-schoolers (except one).  F. M. L.  I was talked to as if I was one of them: slow, stupid, and shy.  I'm not any of those things.  Well, slow sometimes.

We did the same thing on Sunday at 8:30 am.  I was told we would be working store hours during this week in the Longmont store, but when I asked her when and gave her my schedule, she said we wouldn't be working because of the weather.  When a schedule was finally made, I was scheduled to work during a time I specifically told her I couldn't work because of final exams starting THIS Saturday.  It's not been fun. 

Monday brought a surprise of its own.  I came home to a very upset roommate.  Her department had randomly decided that hall directors with roommates had to get rid of the roommates.  Presently, there is no rule against it, and they have known that I have been living here since August, but it only became a problem this week.  Why?  I don't know.  If the department had their way, I would be out on the street right now.  I apparently pose a security risk or something.

Surprisingly, I wasn't freaking out about it.  My dear friend Kenny recently broke up with his boyfriend and has been looking for a roommate, so I knew that I had that option.  Christina told me to wait until Thursday (today), so that they could make a definite decision.

I waited.  Today came, and they have decided to write a new policy for hall directors that requires that their roommates be either family members or domestic partners. Because I'm not Christina's domestic partner and because I have no desire to turn lesbian in order to stay in this apartment, I have to move out.  The department wants me out as soon as possible, but Christina said I could stay until after Christmas break.  I'll probably move out at the end of next week.

Kenny is staying in a condo in Broomfield, which is about 10 miles from Boulder.  It's not nearly as convenient for many reasons:

• I'll be commuting to Boulder daily (but we plan on carpooling).
• It's an unfurnished place, so I'll have to buy some furniture (unless anyone has anything they'd be willing to donate and deliver to CO for me).
• It's not nearly as convenient as living on campus because I'll have to get everything done during the day and won't be able to make random trips to the music building or library.
• My house was very centrally located for my friends, and a great meeting point.
• It was nice not to have to drive home after a night of too many teas.
  

However, I do think it will be awesome to live with Kenny.

• He's from SD, and we get along splendidly.  We already know where each other is every minute of every day, so this won't be weird at all.
• Rent will be about the same.
• I get to park right by my building instead of a 10-minute walk away.
• Broomfield is closer to work (if I keep my job at BR).

It's been pretty stressful, what with finals next week (starting Saturday) and random tests and recitations this week.  But there is never a dull moment in CO.  I hope to continue to update all of you more regularly this week, because there are some exciting things ahead!!!

Thanks for reading during my hiatus!

Laid-back: Boulder style

Believe it or not, these weekends without excessive partying are starting to get on my good side.  I've now gone two whole weekends in a row without drinking more than one drink per night.  Crazy, right?

On Friday, the University Choir travelled to Denver for the American Choral Director's Association choir festival on the campus of the University of Denver (DU).  We sang show tunes the whole way there.  It made me miss the JC choir tour...  No one was really excited about the prospect of listening to a bunch of choirs sing all night, and when one of the girls was drinking on the bus, I was jealous that I hadn't thought of the idea.  That is, until we arrived at DU and she couldn't walk straight.  It was a riot, but I can't imagine trying to perform while drunk.  Despite her 0drunkenness, the performance went just fine.  I was still a little jealous.

I felt like going out on the town aftereward, but everyone else was pretty lame, so Kenny, Dennis, and I went to The Sink, one of Boulder's most famous restaurants.  Why is it famous?  True story: When Robert Redford (yes, the Robert Redford) lived in Boulder, he was a custodian there.  Yep.  He cleaned toilets.  We had one drink there, and shared some... interesting... conversation, then headed home.

Saturday felt more like a Monday.  I tutored a psychology student in the morning, went grocery shopping, and had a voice lesson, then had a potluck dinner party to prepare for.  By shortly after 6:00, my apartment was the home of 5 additional people, and we enjoyed a good (albeit random) meal.

We had had plans to go dancing downtown later on, but by 9:00, almost the whole group had petered out. So instead of going downtown, Pasha, Anna, and I hit up a Mexican restaurant.  No, we didn't eat again.  They have salsa dancing there every Saturday night, and Anna is a regular.  Turns out that she's also an amazing dancer.

Neither Pasha nor I had ever salsa-ed before, and because there was an odd number of us, it was awkward at first.  Anna was teaching Pasha, and I was sitting alone until some old man named Rick came and taught me the basics.  I also danced with another old guy named Jordan and a little bit with Pasha. (I'm sure it was a sight to see us first-timers together.)  The older men were very kind about helping me through some steps and were patient when I messed up.  And yes, folks, this does mean that I danced sober.  (The Travesty!!!)

Anna stole the show.  She's a beautiful girl from Hungary, and she can dance.  Every eye on the floor was on her, and I overheard some men comparing her to a Ferrari. No joke. 

Dancing has been the theme this week, I guess.  On Wednesday, for Opera Theatre, I had the opportunity to learn how to waltz from a guy at CU who was on Broadway for like 87 years.  Now that was spectacular.  I could follow that man for hours. 

Men: anyone who ever told you that the key to a woman's heart is anything but dancing lied to you.  Dancing's the key.  Learn how to lead, and she will be smitten.  Or I will, at least.

Here's to low-key weekends.  Maybe I should see how long I last without drinking...

Crazy by Choir

Anyone who was ever in JC's Concert Choir will appreciate this post.

Anyone who was in JC's Concert Choir under my reign as President will especially appreciate this post. 

I finally realized today that I am a choir nazi.  That statement will not surprise most of you, but it kind of surprises me.  I guess I always knew that I was somewhere in the back of my mind, but it really came out this evening. 

I kind of want to apologize for my psycho-ness when it comes to choir, but I can't, because I don't necessarily think that what I've done is worthy of an apology. 

Allow me to explain:

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I sometimes think that I have a slight case of OCD.  A few examples of this OCD-ish behavior:

• My CD's are alphabetized within genres in my CD case.
• My closet is color-coded.  Within each color are subcategories of clothing based on material weight and article of clothing.
• When I eat, I have to eat the same amount on both sides of my mouth so that my teeth get the same exposure.  If it's small items, like SweetTarts, I have to eat an even number of them.
•  I count my steps and stairs as I walk.

You get the picture.  I'm a freak, but I say it's only a slight case of OCD because I never make my bed in the morning, I wash my hands a million times a day, and I'm not afraid of germs.  (Forgive the stereotypes inherent in that statement.)

My OCD apparently extends to choir.

JC's Concert Choir had very strict rules governing uniforms, riser etiquette, and the like.  I expected CU to be worse, with 5 choirs and goodness knows how many singers.

I was wrong.

Apparently, the liberalism of Boulder extends to the choir world.  There are no real uniforms for women and men have to buy their own tuxedos, it's okay to wear jewelry and have your hair in your face, music doesn't have to be memorized because we can use folders, it's okay to move around on the risers, and you don't necessarily have to keep eye contact with the conductor.

Let's suffice it to say that I'm going nuts here, people.  I cannot handle this laid-back-ness.    I'm a rule-follower.  I always have been.  I don't think it's hard to follow the rules, and despise it when people think that they deserve to be above them.  I enjoy rigidness and uniformity,especially in choir.  (Maybe it's the NDakotan in me.)  

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To my CO UChoir friends:  I realize that I've probably been annoying the crap about you with all of my talk about the differences in JC's Choir and CU's choir, but it's driving me psycho.  Seriously.  If I start talking about it, just tell me to shut up. I'll do my best.