From Nashville - Day Four

I’m losing steam now. These conferences take a tremendous amount of energy. This morning I enjoyed another expensive, but divinely delicious fruit tart in the conservatory before my 9 AM session on teaching kids to sing. I got a few ideas from it, but for the most part it was geared towards folks that think children are too young for voice lessons. The next session was a panel of opera company professionals talking about what they look for when they are auditioning to hire for a part. Then there were a couple of mock auditions with feedback. I took a lot of notes.

Lunch was the 2nd Leadership Summit. It was a nice three-course plated lunch. At the end of the meeting, I made an announcement about the collaboration I am involved in with the Texoma Region for acquiring tabulation software for our student auditions. Several people came up to chat with me about it afterwards, which was exactly what I wanted. That 15-second announcement will be worth its weight in gold when it comes to trying to share the financial responsibility for this project. In that regard, my trip to the national conference was extremely well-timed. I also found out that a friend of mine from SVI 2005 arrived at the conference yesterday. I left him a voicemail and am hoping I have an opportunity to see him while I am here.

After lunch was the master class with Dawn Upshaw. As usual, I snagged a front row seat and captured bits of it on video. It was much more engaging than the Sherrill Milnes class, but she was intentional about not discussing vocal technique, instead addressing interpretational issues, which are generally rather subtle changes in singers of high caliber, as these were. The amusing thing was that in both the Milnes and Upshaw classes, they began with the piano lid raised on the short stick: Milnes immediately closed the lid with a comment about how it should always be closed when accompanying singers, while Upshaw immediately lifted it to full stick, suggesting that the singer use it as a sounding board. Ms. Upshaw continued to impress me as a very down-to-earth, sincere individual. I was sad that she had to leave rather quickly afterward so that I had opportunity neither for a photo with her nor a handshake & hello.

Following my 2nd afternoon session, I met up with other board members from my region at the regional governor’s room for wine and chips. We had some very engaging discussions about the guest artists and the judging from this year’s NATSAA competition.

After that, I returned to my room where I sit wondering how to proceed with my evening. This evening’s artist recital, featuring the NATSAA winner from the last conference, begins in five minutes. I would like to hear her, and I am particularly interested in hearing her last set, but I am also very tired and want to be mentally and physically fresh for another long, busy & exciting day tomorrow. I have also really wanted to go to the pool sometime while I am here, but so far haven’t had time. At least having done my journaling a little early, I will be able to get to bed earlier tonight.