Party @ Ms. Wise's house :) 

weekend to study...or not

Wow, in 1 week I'll be driving solo, just me and my tunes on the road back to the Northeast. Unbelievable. Other than two little final exams, I'm done with half my master's degree. Wonders never cease.

As reminded by my wife, Leanne Rose, I have not mentioned the reasons I will be happy to come home to Poughkeepsie. The list is short, but so important that I don't even need to remind myself of it, because it's a given! But, to clarify, I will see my wonderful mom, and my fantabulous wife of almost 18 years, Lan. :) It's going to be lots of fun! Thank goodness they both are there, as I would definitely go stir crazy in about 2 a half days. Maybe 2 and 3/4 days. Bubby-time is definitely in the works :)

I don't know what actual things I'd like to do when I get home. I mean, I'll certainly get a lot of reading done, which I'm really happy about, because I haven't actually finished a "fun" book since about October. There's always the movie theaters, but since I've signed up for netflix, we can just watch good movies at home for much cheaper. If the weather is nice (I am sure it will be, but it's hard to think about when it's still so freakin' cold here!!!) I would like to take some walks, and of course I'll be learning lots of new music. I forsee cooking a lot because both mom and I are used to cooking for ourselves. We can take turns making dinner, which seems to be a functional answer. It would be great to take a mini vacation to some beach...maybe Lan and I can go to Long Beach Island again? Unfortunately we'd have to wait until August, as it's not warm until then...or maybe we can split the driving and make our way someplace else that's a little warmer?

Well, this is turning into ranting, and it should really be in french to practice for my final exam. Je dois etudier pour mon examen. Je veux dormir, lire, et ecouter de la musique, mais je ne peux pas. Mais...je vais relacher aussi. Peut-etre je vais relacher et demain je vais etudier :)

A demain~

Post-Recital

Wow. It's over. If you take a look at the pics below, you'll witness the post-recital happiness and chatting :)

So, it seems like people liked the recital overall. Today I get the lowdown from Ms. Wise, as we're going to watch the video at my lesson today. Eek. I hope I make it out of there alive. I'm not going to like it.

So, I was supposed to be homefree by now, and although I'm getting close, I'm definitely not done yet. I'm eager to start learning a lot of new music (I already have next year's recital planned out!) but my voice has definitely not been in a singing mood these past two days, and that stinks. Gotta get that self-confidence up. :)

So, I'll be home in a week and 3 days! Unbelievable. I can't wait to visit NYC, where I'll see so many wonderful friends: Sliker, Twisha, Dodef, Brendan, George, and probably many more people. We'll get Youngbug out there somehow :)

Well, I better get running. I wanted to post the pics, though, for anyone out of state that wanted to check me out in my recital garb ;)

Auntie Pat, Kazuha, me, and Mom

Kazuha and I! We're done!

Me and Ms. Wise, talking shop

Recital!

Top 10 Reasons to come to my recital:

10- You bet your friends $100 you could attend 20 recitals this weekend, and by 3pm on Sunday you'll still need at least one more.

9- You want to meet my awesome Mom and my Auntie Pat.

8- You promised me you would, and you'd rather keep your promise than be blacklisted forever.

7- All your friends are coming, and if you don't come along, you'll rot in your apartment alone for the whole hour.

6- You secretly love voice recitals.

5- You are obsessed with high notes, and I'll sing 3 high-Es in a row.

4- You need a decent reason to postpone writing that awful paper.

3- You can laugh about the duct tape that is under-wraps.

2- You've never seen my tattoo, and now's your chance.

1- You are completely and totally in love with me, and don't know how to show it...

Sunday, April 24th, at 3 pm in Ford Hall. Come on, I mean, I'll be there. :)

The Coloratowa~

Tutto bene!!! Kaia and I had a great time tonight--we had wonderful wine, tasty food, heard the fantastic stylings of Joe and Co. and talked up a storm. Tutto bene exactly :) 

Duct tape has many uses. Anyone have a good way to get the sticky residue off skin? Sigh. Good thing today is a short day.

no need to CRY

we CRYed. It went fairly well, and the audience there was receptive. It was practically vocal rape, to be blunt, but we'll all be fine to sing tomorrow, so I guess we can't complain too much.

So, the best part of today was the after concert party at Dr. Harrington's house. I have never seen such an amazingly beautiful and creative house. It is out in the middle of nowhere, and has many wrap-around porches and gorgeous landscape, plenty of windows (walls of them) and nooks and crannies and billions of pieces of artwork and things from far away lands. It was mesmorizing...and the food was fantastic! It was so sweet of him to have us all over for a great evening. I was able to catch up with Vasiliki, which was also great, as we talked for over 2 hours. :)

Driving back home in the car was also an interesting time--you know, there are snapshots of life that you feel you will remember forever--as if life can be paused on them; and you will be able to bring those images back, and remember the exact way you felt...and those moments are often ones that seem silly or inconsequential...like driving home from the middle of nowhere with 3 other chicks in the car, listening to funky music as you rumble across unpaved road littered with trees...it just reminded me of how brief my time here will be...fleeting friendships that don't develop as much as you'd like because there just isn't the time. It's really a sad thing. Then I started wondering how life will be after this whole college stint ends. Will I live anywhere more than a year or two for a whole decade? I won't have school as a common bond anymore; will we be able to connect? It leaves me between scrambling to organizing events so I can spend more time with people I want to really know, or sheltering myself so to not get a glimpse of the friendships I'll be missing...

Alas, despite the melancholy feeling, it was a great evening.

To the many great evenings left before next year is over, I raise my glass. Cheers.

Magic Flute!!!

The Pa-ers, PapagenA and PapagenO

No more PAs

It's pretty unbelievable that Magic Flute is over. Of course now that I feel totally relaxed about the perfomance, it's done. It always seems to work that way.

Part of me is happy that I will have so much free time now (choir is over after tomorrow) but I am sad because I don't really feel like I had bonding time with the Magic Flute cast. I think it was the nature of my role, as I was only onstage with Papageno...but still, I feel like I had one day of rehearsal, then tech week, and now it's over, and it will be quickly a very past memory.

I think I got some good pictures tonight, though, so once they are in my computer, hopefully you'll see a group shot above this entry!

I don't want to write too long, as my brain is swimming and needs to be shut down for the evening. Choir concert tomorrow at 4pm (Swayne's crazy piece, "Cry", which is an interesting concept, but should be performed by machines so to not cause so many voices so much pain). Then choir party, and chilling before another week begins. Only 2 school weeks left~a scary thought that in approximately 1 year from now I will be leaving my new home for a newer homebase. The life of a singer is definitely not a stable one.

Goodnight to the many people that make my life so wonderful~

Let us again ride the rollercoaster

So now we've passed the nerves, and we've passed the calm. I am now residing in a state of physical armor. My insides are nice and warm and fine, and my muscles have all hardened themselves to the extreme, causing me much trouble when I attempt to do something musical with my voice. It's quite a problem, and I hope that by my recital hearing tomorrow, it will all be fine.

Yesterday I attempted many ways of relaxation, from stretching, meditation (though my mind was racing too much to do well at that one), eating a good meal, watching a movie, singing, and using one of those heat patches on my neck. This morning I took a long hot shower, and now I am eating some pancakes and listening to Barber's Adagio and his violin concerto. Let's hope it makes me feel better.

To take things into perspective, tomorrow won't be that bad. 3 or so pieces later, and the faculty will know I am memorized, and the hearing will be over. I might not wow them, they may not think I'm fantastic, but who cares? No bother stressing over it, as it will only make things worse.

To recap, Magic Flute went really well this weekend. I had lots of fun, and am not worried about Saturday in the least. We had a full house at the show, and my family was here, which was great, despite the fact that I didn't get much sleep.

Well, I am going to make sure all of my things are ready for today, and bask a little more in the Barber....I am so afraid that I won't make the Hermit Songs what they should be. Maybe I just don't love them as much as I thought I would, I don't know. Bleech. No more worrying!

Have a great day~

Calm 1

is on it's way. Flute rehearsals are over, and I open tomorrow night! Should be fun--let's hope that I can make all my dialogue clear and crisp and heard! That's been the main problem for all of us up there. Not to mention my difficulties with my 30 pound long cloak. Sigh. Gotta love being clumsy.

My mom is coming into town tonight, and then my cousins Diane and Richard are coming on Friday. I'm so excited that family is going to visit! My apartment looks hideous right now, but I'm hoping the hour I have later today will clean it up sufficiently.

I had a coaching with Roger Vignoles yesterday, and it was awesome. It was officially a masterclass, but the time I was able to go, we were working together in a studio without an audience, which I preferred. He was great, and it made me sad that I don't get coachings every week! His main advice--simplify. Don't "emote" but rather just say the words, let them carry you, and believe in what you are saying. It was harder than you'd think to really just let it happen. I'm sure that my breath support went out the window a little bit, but I think once I get the idea better, it'll make everything a lot easier. I guess I want to sing these Hermit Songs so well I'm just way overshooting and working way too hard. Sigh.

I've got 4 minutes until bus time, but in case I don't blog again before Saturday, A big Happy Birthday to Dodef!!!, who is now ever older than old ;)

~Lowa

79 in the sun

I've noticed that it's warmest in IN around 2-5pm. This is quite different from NY heat, which starts around 11 and simmers down around 3. At least that's how it always seemed to me.

Today it is beautiful, my terrace door is open and I can hear the birds singing. The lawn is rich green, and the sun is shining. In 30 minutes I will be held captive in a windowless basement room for hours on end, trying to get work done as I worry about my next entrance. Alas, it's dress rehearsal week.

Last time I blogged (which was quite recently, I believe) I was overjoyed with my crazy schedule. Today I am not feeling the love. It was busy (and still is), and nothing exciting happened. My voice was in a weird state, therefore completely ruining a good portion of the day. All I want to do is finish up the semester and enjoy time outside. Instead, every spare second I am trying to get more things done, as I know that I'll be cutting into precious sleep time if I don't. My goal is to finish everything important by my recital. That way I'll be really busy until then, but once that's over, the fat (skinny, ahem) lady has sung. Alas.

Tomorrow will be easier, I am sure. It's lots less busy, and I don't have to sing the dress rehearsal, which means I'll be trapped in a windowless space for a few hours, but without light too. However, I'll be entertained, as opposed to be entertaining. Who knows. I know I love it, but I'm ready for a break. Or at least something new.

Well, I better cut this short and get my things together and my laptop stored and ready for transport. I hope all is well wherever you may be reading this from.

A domani, Papagena

Busy and lovin' it

As you all may have suspected, my weeks have become full of time-consuming rehearsals and such. Contrary to my belief, I am pretty much loving it! Not only that, but I am still getting into bed around the same time, and getting more sleep because the second I'm in bed, I'm snoring! Woohoo!

The next weeks are going to pass by really really fast, and in no time I will be in Poughkeepsie, visiting with my mom and my NYC friends. :) Yay!

Before I forget, here is a list of days I'll be performing. If you feel so inclined, please come to support me/hear some great (hopefully!) music:

Friday April 8th and Saturday April 16th- Magic Flute. Friday is open seating, which means any seat, and cheaper too. Both performances are at 8pm. Watch me "Pa" in style for my 5 minute MAC debut :)

Saturday April 16th-Opera Auditions. I'm singing Durch Zartlichkeit (which has nothing to do with either opera, but will hopefully go really well and be good recital prep). For you high note affetionados, it's got 3 high Es at the end. I'm supposed to go on around 11am. Opera auditions are great to watch if you want to catch lots of different singers singing their attempted best in under 4 minutes each.

Sunday, April 17th-having been recruited into University Singers, I'm performing in Giles Swayne's CRY at 4pm. It's 70 minutes long, 1-on-a-part amplified crazy singing. I've got some high Ds to sing, and tons and tons of notes above B-flat to wail on for way too long (while saying melemelemele over and over. If you're masochistic, or just plain curious, come watch. If nothing else, it should be really interesting...

Saturday, April 23rd-Adonis and I are singing in a church concert benefiting our music ministry at St. Paul's (17th St. just west of Jordan). The concert will be performed by different school of music students--3 singers, and a good handful of instrumentalists. I'm performing rep that will be on my recital, so if you're just coming to check me out, you should come on out on:

Sunday, April 24th-this is the BIG PERFORMANCE! this semester. My first master's recital, Ford Hall, 3pm. I'll be performing Handel, Mozart (one aria from Alcina, the other from Abduction of the Seraglio, mentioned above [3 high Es]) Brahms, Strauss (only 1 German lied each), Faure, and Barber (the whole Hermit). Kazuha Nakahara will be accompanying :) The whole recital should be just under an hour. Please come support me, as it is always nicer to sing for a larger audience. :)
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And that's that. I'll be going out on Monday April 25th to celebrate the end of the above performances and the handing in of my last paper (stupid vocal ped, it's due the 25th, the day after that crazy weekend). All are invited to celebrate the last Monday of our first year at Grad school! :)