Things to get excited about

Wow has it been a busy couple of weeks! My weekdays are suddenly full with students, and my weekends are filled with rehearsals, coachings, auditions, and gigs. What a contrast to three weeks ago! I will confess that I’m loving every minute of it.

Fun story from a recent audition - One of the things I’ve been working on lately is dramatic expression in my singing. I get compliments on my physical acting on the regular, but that wasn’t carrying over into my sound in the way I wanted. Well ladies and gentlemen, I feel like I really accomplished my goal (at least with that particular performance). I sang this piece as my opener, and apparently sang it with so much emotional conviction that one of the audition panelists was reduced to tears. Let me tell you…I left that audition room feeling like I WON.

I will admit, that aria is easy for me to sing with lots of emotion. My husband has done a few deployments in the Middle East, so those emotions are REAL. The challenge with that particular piece is to not let the emotions get out of control. I haven’t reached a final destination with this work yet, but you can bet I’ll be plugging away at it over the coming weeks….

BECAUSE…..

Next month, I’m headed to Spain! For the Montserrat Caballé International Singing Competition!!!!!

Needless to say, I’m VERY excited about this opportunity. This will be my first time singing in (or traveling to) Europe. I keep hearing that Barcelona is an amazing city, and I’m looking forward to seeing the sights as well as (hopefully) singing some auditions when I’m not singing for the competition.

So here’s my to-do’s for the week:

• I’ve got an audition on Monday, so I'll be double and triple-checking that the rep for that is in top shape.

• I’ve also got a few gigs coming up that I need to get music learned and memorized for. Definitely need to be well-prepared for a rehearsal this weekend.

• I’ll be continuing to work on singing expressively - ESPECIALLY for the pieces I’m taking to Spain!

• I’ve also got some reading to do in The Naked Voice - I’ll be discussing Part One with my students in just a couple of weeks!