They make me so proud...

The first of my voice students to ever leave my studio for music school (college) was Shina, who is now in her 2nd year at my alma mater, Indiana University. She had studied with me three years. The second of my voice students to leave my studio for music school will be Kristina, who was today accepted into the voice performance program at my current school, University of Northern Colorado. She has also studied with me three years.

Her audition was this morning. Before she even left the room, they accepted her to the performance program and offered her a scholarship!! I've never even heard of schools accepting students on the spot without any consultation with one another whatsoever. I am so proud of her! And she made me look really good in front of a bunch of voice professors at UNC. :-) I am looking forward to seeing her on campus next semester. :-)

Happy Blog-iversary!

Yes, today marks exactly one year since my first blog entry, and this is my 114th entry.

Gifts may be sent to ERVeigel2 @ AOL.com....! ;-)

Accomplished!

I have so busy lately! I have spent most of my "free" time working on the program for Loveland Opera Theatre's upcoming show, The Gondoliers. It ended up being 32 pages long!!! I finally turned it in to the producer yesterday, and she delivered it to the printer this morning. It is a huge accomplishment, and even though I'm very proud of it, I'm also sick to death of it. And working on it put me behind in so many other things, especially housework. But God blessed me with a very productive week, and I was able to keep up with all my deadlines for school. With that project behind me now, I can start my teaching observations later this week. I have to work in 35 hours before the semester ends and that doesn't include the 2-hour round-trip commute. How on earth did I end up busier this semester after I cut back on classes and credits?? I really can't complain, though - as busy as I am, I enjoy every bit of it. I leave for Greeley at 6:30 on Monday mornings and get home around 11 PM - I expected to dread Mondays, but they are so intellectually stimulating that I actually look forward to them now.

Also on the topic of accomplishments, rumor has it that our (Musicians of St. Clare's) two latest recordings will be released this week. These include the Bach B Minor Mass and our Rome program. I have solos on both, but I am especially nervous about the Rome program because it has that Allegri quartet on it. (See "Anyone have a rock I can crawl under?") I know we ended up with a "good" recording, but I'm afraid I will be disappointed with it simply because it was so memorable in Rome. Simply put, I believe it was my finest performing experience ever, and I don't want a less-than-breathtaking recording to taint that perfect memory. For all I know, the recording is excellent, but I also know it has to be pretty spectacular to live up to that night in St. Ignatius. Memories of that performance have affected every note I've sung since.

On an entirely different topic, (see, this is what happens when I'm too busy to keep up with my blog!) I ask you to pray for Eric and I in the coming months as we are headed into a difficult period. My busy-ness puts a certain strain on our lives, but by the grace of God, we have been stronger than ever in our marriage lately. For the next several weeks, however, Eric will be working 1-2 nights a week, in addition to 3-4 days a week. Day shifts and night shifts in the same week! I don't care who you are, taking the following day off does not enable you to recover from a 24-hour work day. Add to that the fact that I teach music at home during the day, so even if he was able to sleep during the day (which he can't), he would have to contend with amateur singers and pianists who can be heard clearly in every room of our cozy home. Oh yeah, and repeat the scenario every few days for a couple of months... Now, be honest, who of us would not be really cranky in this situation? I expect these few months to really test us. Maybe my busy-ness will prove a blessing if I'm too busy to be in his way...?

A personal best

Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions - prelims

Not the best I've ever performed, or even the best I've ever performed that aria, but by far the best I've ever performed in competition.

In all the others, I was nervous and that made me tighten the breathing mechanism, which resulted in all sorts of vocal issues. Today, I felt confident and I sang well. My only obvious mistake was the next to last note cut out for a split second. But I was still happy with it overall.

I was a bit disappointed when I went to sit in the audience with my teacher and read her comments over her shoulder. She wrote 1-2 words next to each person, and next to mine she wrote, "undersang." I didn't think I had. I know I didn't start out that way. But it doesn't matter.

I really don't expect to make it to the district finals, even though that's what I said I wanted. I listened to a handful of other singers before and after me, and many of them were incredible. (I was secretly glad that at least one of them did not do as well as I did - I was better than somebody.) I'm not sure even my best performance would be good enough to advance me to the district finals. (You'd have to hear these people!!) So, I'm just glad I did my best and came away from it smiling for once.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my beloved husband of four years! I love you more today than I did the day we married.... and that's saying a lot! Thank you for all your loving support and encouragement and for being my very best friend in the world. Love, Ellie

In retrospect...

You know, if Saturday was really my worst day in recent memory, I'm exceptionally blessed.

Anyone have a rock I can crawl under?

This has been my worst day in recent memory. I had a recording session with the Musicians of Saint Clare, the choir with whom I have been to Europe three times. In attempting to record the solo quartet in the Allegri Miserere Mei Deus, I just couldn’t tune right, and the more I got it wrong, the worse it got. I felt so humiliated. I felt better after lunch, and we recorded a few more songs before I was overcome with a feverish pre-syncopal episode and had to lie down for most of the rest of the session. Again, I felt really stupid. This is the 2nd time in 4 months the NCS has taken me down in front of the choir – it must be getting old. “There she goes again!” It’s so embarrassing to me. Fortunately, when the rest of the choir left, our quartet took another stab at the Allegri and this time everything tuned perfectly. The day was saved.

Don’t get me wrong – I do love to be the center of attention, but there are some limits, and musical incompetency and public incapacitation fall well outside those limits. I feel like I came across as a total basketcase today in front of a group of people I love and respect.

Music Education in America

I've been wondering about our system of music education here in the US. It's very competitive. We're always auditioning to get into the highest group (if not the highest chair) and competing against other schools. There is no question this encourages us to strive for the highest quality music-making, but to what extent does it discourage music-making altogether?

I've been reading about how music education has grown and declined repeatedly across history. Whenever music was a largely amateur activity that blended into every day life, it flourished as a core subject in schools. But whenever a culture began to emphasize professionalism in music, music education became less valued in the community - sort of a, "if they can't be expected to perform at a professional level, and thus cannot be expected to contribute to society with these skills, why waste time teaching it?" mentality. The purpose of education is to pass along skills and knowledge that people need in order to function effectively and contribute to society. In earlier times, knowing how to leisure well was a valuable skill. There are still those who say, "teach a kid to blow a horn and he won't blow a safe."

Historically, the role of music in the community affects music education, but can it go the opposite way? If we removed or lessened the competitive culture from music education, would it be more pervasive?

Consider a high school with four choirs. In today's schools, those would be a non-auditioned freshman choir and three auditioned choirs at increasing levels. What would it look like if there were no auditions, only freshman choir, sophomore choir, junior choir, and senior choir? Those students who intend to pursue music professionally can always find community choirs and private teachers. Would the others learn to appreciate music-making as an enriching leisure activity that brings people together? Or would we just lose those we already have? Would short-term losses ultimately yield long-term gains for the field?

I also strongly suspect that grade level participation in high school music fits a pyramid. More freshman than sophomores, more sophomores than juniors, and so on. If that is true, what factors are causing some students to decide that music classes are not the best use of their time?

There's a good chance that these ideas that are rolling around in my head will work themselves into a term paper by the end of the semester, so I greatly appreciate random thoughts and arguments to help me shake things down.