Welcome to Nashville - Day One

It has been a long day already, but a good one and worth the early start. After finally getting to sleep around 12:30 this morning, I was up again at 3 AM, leaving the house by 3:30 to catch my 5:30 flight to Nashville. I read a lot of Terry Pratchett’s “Night Watch” on the flight – I am enjoying this book quite a bit – it’s very witty. I laughed out loud a couple of times.

I checked into the Gaylord Opryland Resort shortly before noon and slept for an hour before wandering out to look for lunch. I can tell that eating and drinking are going to be expensive endeavors for the next several days. But the atmosphere is beautiful. The resort is 9 acres – a whole village – under one glass roof. It’s kind of like being in a biosphere. So there’s “outside” and then there’s “outside outside.” My room overlooks the river – outside. I am presently sitting on the balcony with my feet up listening to the waterfalls and the breeze blowing through the palm trees. Yes, a breeze indoors (“outside”) and palm trees in Tennessee. They even have a large garden conservatory. They’ve got it all here. It’s a fascinating place, really, and very relaxing, which is exactly what I’ve needed. I’m in the part of the resort known as The Delta, which has a riverboat theme to it. The only downside is that there are only two swimming areas, and in a 9-acre building, they are both a bit of a hike.

After lunch, I checked in at the registration table, where I ran into my regional governor, who told me that the NATSAA semi-finals were going on upstairs. I sat in to listen to the first four singers of the afternoon. They were all excellent, and at least three of the four are better singers than I, but I was pleased that I was still able to identify in each performance several areas needing specific improvements. This is not a vindictive sort of thing; it just means that my teaching ears are good and sharp, which is an encouragement, though as my roommate stated, sometimes it would be nicer not to have sharp ears.

Throughout the competition, the timekeeper would call out the remaining time, and I would crane my neck to try to see her because the voice was so familiar to me. About halfway through, I finally got a glimpse of her and decided I didn’t recognize her, but nonetheless the voice was extremely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out who it reminded me of. It was driving me nuts.

As tired as I am, I got restless after an hour and headed back to my room. This brings us to where I was three paragraphs ago, on the balcony with my feet up. As I was typing, I was also checking out the conference program, and on page 4, I spied a familiar name from my past on an ad for the UT School of Music. She was my choir director at my church in Ohio before I moved to Colorado, and her daughter and I sang together in CSOCC. I haven’t seen her in 18 years. Underneath her name, it read, “Tennessee Regional Governor, NATS.” Considering the conference is in Tennessee, I thought to myself, “Wow, I bet anything she’s here. I wonder how I can make sure I run into her.” I continued flipping through the program, and on page 9, there was her name (again!) and picture, but this time underneath her name, it read, “NATSAA Coordinator.” NATSAA…. That’s the competition I was just sitting in on… And then, of course, it hit me… she was the timekeeper! A different hairstyle and 18 years made her not immediately recognizable to me from a distance, but had I been closer, I would have recognized her.

Needless to say, the remainder of this journal entry had to wait while I darted back over (waaay over) to the convention center. I slipped in to hear the final contestant and reintroduced myself to my choir director, who was naturally as happy to see me as I was to see her. We got to chat only briefly because, of course, she had responsibilities to attend to for the contest, but we’ll be here a few more days and we did get a picture just in case time gets away from us this week.

I came back to the room and was just starting to journal again when my roommate arrived. We had only chatted a couple of times by email, but when she came in, she gave me a big hug like we were old friends, and oddly enough, it kind of felt like we were. We chatted awhile, then we went “outside” (not “outside outside”) for dinner and chatted some more. Conversation comes very easily between us, which is an incredible blessing. She went to Westminster Conservatory, like a surprising number of my friends – maybe that has something to do with it. And she is a Fulbright scholar – she leaves in August to start her studies abroad. We are both here in Nashville on a scholarship from NATS. And now we are both lying on our respective beds with our laptops. I considered going swimming this evening, but I am just too tired. Never mind that it is only 8 PM. (7 PM in CO!)

I am looking forward to many exciting educational and professional experiences over the next few days. Here’s a preview of tomorrow: First, a pre-conference workshop with Kittie Verdolini, which I expect will be somewhat of a review of the things she taught me in 2005 at the SVI – and I need a review, so this is good. Then, the opening ceremony, including a keynote address from renowned baritone, Sherrill Milnes. Finally, a “wired” master class, which will likely be fascinating on multiple levels: first, that the master teachers are Shirlee Emmons, whose The Art of the Song Recital is a standard university voice program text, and Robert Edwin; and second, that the singers will be connected to biofeedback instruments so we can observe the effects of the master teachers’ instructions visually and objectively. Worth getting a good night’s rest for, I think.