Wow....unbe-freakin'-lievable.

At 9:00, the auditions are canceled. At 11:30, they are back on, but moved from Laramie, WY to Fort Collins, CO - CSU. This is nothing short of a miracle. Imagine finding a whole college music building available to host a few hundred singers for a whole day on 38 hours notice....! Unbelievable.

Why-oming!

I was supposed to be in Laramie, WY on Saturday for the NATS (Natl Assn of Teachers of Singing) annual student auditions and chapter meeting. My colleagues and I put in countless hours preparing for the event. My students put in many hours preparing their music and their minds for the competition, plus paying their pianist and entry fees and forfeiting other opportunities for the day. I was supposed to judge, sing, tabluate and run for the office of VP of Auditions, which would/will put me in charge of this very event for the next two years. But, the event has been canceled due to the blizzard in Wyoming. What a winter we have had!

I don't really know if the cancellation was necessary. If the event were tomorrow, there would be little question. But the winter storm warning lets up at midnight tonight and it's supposed to be fairly warm over the weekend. BUT my colleagues put a lot of effort into this, and I can't imagine they would cancel it unless they really felt they had no choice. Fortunately, my students have been very understanding and even relieved, since they have also been watching the weather. But it's still very disappointing for all of us, especially one particular student of mine who stood a good chance of winning her division.

The good news is that the regional audition in November will be at UNC in Greeley, so it will be quite easy for my students to sing at the regional auditions this year. For the last couple of years, they have been a whole day's drive away. So, at least my students don't have to wait an entire year to try again, but it will be a bigger event. (This weekend was the CO/WY chapter auditions. The region includes CO, WY, KS and NE.)

A landmark week of teaching

R.S. has been trying for over a year to learn how to roll her r's. She in 8th grade. I gave her some exercises to try and every few weeks she'd come in excited, "I did it this week!" - but she could never reproduce it or sustain it. This week, she came in and was able to do it repeatedly on command and sustain it for long periods of time. In other words, she finally mastered it. I was so proud of her perseverence!

B.B. is 27 years old and losing her hearing - a devastating disability for a musician. Although she is a fine musician with good intonation overall, she tended to go sharp or flat frequently without realizing it, even when singing with a piano. It was so frustrating for her. She finally got hearing aids this week and tried them out at her lesson yesterday. (Actually, she prefers to sing with only one hearing aid because they amplify her own voice, as well, often to the extent of overpowering the piano.) Her intonation improved 99%, and she knew it. It was an emotional experience for her. She sings with the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League (PHAMALy). They put on some of the most outstanding productions in the Denver area. This year she hopes to take advantage of a technology they have for deaf singers which is a hearing aid type insert for the ear that transmits the instrumental accompaniment right into the ear. It's going to be an exciting season for her.

Trisket's story

(to the tune of "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy")

He wanted to move up in life from where he was at,
No longer be an alley- but an aristo-cat.
He found a girl to take him in,
Then he was locked in a cage he didn't want to be in,
He's in Aurora now, lovin' it every day,
He's the mollycoddled kitty-cat of Lewiston Way.

The other cats on Lewiston did not like him much,
They chased up him and down the hall and under the hutch,
They didn't want him living there,
But mama told them to stop or they had better beware,
He chases them now, they try to get away,
He's the mollycoddled kitty-cat of Lewiston Way.

Yes, he's my mollycoddled kitty-cat of Lewiston Way!

Stupid daylight savings....

I really wanted to go to church today. I needed to refocus myself on the important things in life.

I had a really demoralizing day yesterday. I've been very tense lately because there's a been a lot of stress in my life this month, and tension is not especially conducive to singing. It causes the breathing muscles to lock and inhibits proper breath support, negatively impacting singing on many important levels. So, my performance in yesterday's voice competition was far from my best work, and I was singing for people who have worked with great opera legends. Still, I wasn't prepared to hear, "based on your education, I expected to be impressed, but I was very disappointed," or "you can't expect a university to hire you as a voice teacher if you can't demonstrate to them that you can sing." This judge gave me comments for about 15 minutes, most of which were enlightening and useful, but no one has ever been so brutally critical of my singing before now, and it stung. This experience stands in stark contrast to my experience of four months ago when I accepted the thunderous applause of a standing international audience in Rome. It finally occurred to me very late last night to wonder why I am ready to accept this judge's opinion (albeit, professional opinion) as fact and ignore every positive comment I've received in the last 15 years.

A decision to make

I've been wholly planning to cut back even further on credits and classes at UNC next semester in another attempt to achieve some sense of balance in my life. Last semester, it was 11 credits, 5 classes; this semester, it is 10 credits, 4 classes. Looking ahead, I had mapped out 9 credits, 3 classes. Just for fun, I decided to add these credits to my cumulative list and see how many more credits I would need after next semester in order to complete my master's degree. The answer was 2. Two little credits. And there's a worthwhile 2 credit course in Opera Literature and History that meets at a fairly convenient time. If I add that course, I'll have 11 credits, 4 classes, plus my comprehensive exam, and my life will once again been sorely out of balance for another fifteen weeks, BUT I would have a master's degree in hand before the end of the year. I'm not in a dreadful hurry - after all, I still have the teaching license to work toward - but there's always a chance God will bless us with a little Seligmann before the end of the next spring semester, in which case, it would be really nice to have completed something before I need to cut back or take a hiatus from school. First of all, I need to talk to the professors of the classes I plan to take and see what the workload looks like. If I've learned anything this semester, it's that credit hours and workload are not related.

For those interested, the three classes I have already decided to take next semester are Research in Music Education (reqd), Seminar: the Baroque Period (elective), and Seminar: the Romantic Period (elective).

Ok, I love grad school

Advanced Vocal Pedagogy has been the class I've been most concerned with because I've had the most to accomplish and turn-in before break in that class. In class today, we discussed the myriad of upcoming deadlines and took a vote to extend the deadline for the big repertoire project by two weeks! How many undergrad classes do something like that? So, I still can't afford to slow down on my work any, but I have considerably more confidence that I will be successful on the projects. The limited amount of work time available to me had called that into question previously. This is a relief!

Down with spring break!

I've never been opposed to the idea of spring break before, but now I see it as every professor's reason for having all major projects due at once. I am so overwhelmed with schoolwork, I can hardly see straight. Having tried to avoid this by taking fewer classes this semester, I find this especially irritating. Given my druthers, I would rather forgo spring break and have my work spread fairly evenly across the semester.