Happy Holidays to all!

So about this "working on holidays" thing...

Disclaimer #1:  I have never shopped Black Friday and have no intention of joining the throngs (hate crowds and typically there are so few real bargains it's not worth it)
Disclaimer #2: I don't think stores "need" to be open on a national holiday like Thanksgiving
Disclaimer #3: Even as a committed  shopper, I'm finding the national devotion to the God of Retail disconcerting and would greatly prefer a real "day off" where it wasn't even *possible* to do stuff.
Disclaimer #4:  If the stories of employer pressure to work on holidays are true, I deplore that behaviour lock, stock and barrel. OPTING to work on a holiday is one thing; being blackmailed into with the threat of losing your job if you don't is another.

Those out of the way, I admit I'm bemused and baffled by the outrage in some quarters.  A program on NPR yesterday featured scores of distraught callers phoning in to discuss the subject (prompting this blog post).  A few responses of my own:

1.  I was impressed by the Finnish caller to NPR who pointed out that because this is a non-religious holiday it's the ONLY time that we get a cross-faith national day off  - this is valid, and a great reason to support it as a totally "dark day" holiday. It is not, however, a religious holiday. Nobody is offending anybody else's God by going to work on the 3rd Thursday in November, so please don't preach on that front (many who called in did exactly that.)

2.  To the woman who near-tearfully reported the distress of having to rearrange their family dinner to a "thanksgiving brunch" because her (employed) children needed to be at work by 6pm:  in some places, a midday meal is traditionally the biggie. Is it really that tough to move it back to 1 or 2 o'clock, still giving guests time to arrive, birds time to cook, and still have time to get to work? Isn't a turkey *lunch* a reasonable compromise?  I appreciate this may not be that family's tradition, but it seems such a simple way to have the big family event and let those who need to work do both without really causing that much disruption.

3.  Lastly, and perhaps the most personally relevant thought of mine in all of this:  many, many people ALWAYS  work on holidays.  I've accepted contracts where the requirement to work on holidays is clearly stated from the outset; it's simply part of the job.    As a performer, I have had to forego more weddings, dinner parties, holiday celebrations and family occasions than you can imagine.   That service you go to on Christmas Eve before heading home to open gifts? The choir has been rehearsing since 4pm - they don't get to have a Christmas Eve celebration unless somebody else is still at home preparing it for them.  That Broadway show you go see on Christmas day?  Yup, those performers are missing the traditional dinner the rest of their family are enjoying; they can't even get out of town to visit family on a NON holiday.  Those musical theater performers strutting down 5th avenue this morning?  Yup, that's their JOB. Sure, it's cool to be part of the Macy's Parade, but I'll bet some of those Rockettes would rather be at home in their jammies drinking mimosas and watching it on TV than freezing their elegant legs off on a float.

This is of course, not limited to performers. Doctors, nurses, police, firefighters, journalists ... there are plenty of people out there for whom working on holidays is a way of life.   As you sit down with your family to eat your turkey, think of ALL the people who have chosen a way of life that often involves working while everybody else celebrates.  Raise your glass,  give them a nod of thanks and save the last piece of pie for them to eat when they get home later.  I can assure you they'll be grateful that their family understood their dilemma and didn't lay on the guilt and make it even harder for them to do their job when much of the country was "on holiday".

Wishing you all the finest of days - no matter how or with whom you're spending your Thanksgiving, the shared experience of reflecting on what we do have instead of what we don't is a worthy national activity.

Rehearsing with Washington Concert Opera...

I'm alarmed that I appear as the tallest thing on the stage (not true, and a trick of the perspective!), but still - what fun!  Truly a pleasure to sing with Maestro Walker and the team of talented musicians and singers on that stage!

Concert Opera Rehearsal

June Roundup

To start at the end instead of the beginning...

June 29, 2012 brought some pretty awful storms to the region. Our area was one of the worst-hit, with trees down pretty much on every block; we consider ourselves beyond lucky that neither of the two big elms in the front yard came down on our house and that we suffered no material damage.  Still, no power for 4 days and 16hrs - during a 3-digit heatwave - is a whole lot of not fun (and, at writing, some people are STILL waiting to be restored nearly a week after the event).  Short version: never underestimate a thunderstorm, and if your weather channel ever says the word "derecho", check your insurance policy, hunker down, and make sure you have somewhere to go after the fact.  Every bit as bad - or worse - than a hurricane, and more like tornado damage.

Earlier in the month, our daughter graduated middle school and moves on to high school in September. When did THAT happen?! Last time I looked she was a cute little grade-schooler with gappy teeth, and now there's a beautiful young woman living in our upstairs bedroom. Every parent says it, but it's so true: it goes so fast!

Her June got off to a bang with a production of Les Miserables with a local professional youth theatre company; as a member of JCo (the "junior company") she was invited to join the ensemble of this extraordinary production which was so completely sold out that they had to extend the run! Quite an achievement, and richly deserved. These young people not only sang and performed well but managed to dig into the heart of a huge piece, bringing every emotion to life. A thoroughly enjoyable night in the theatre, a triumph for the kids and a wonderful experience for her.

Not content with letting the 2-foot kid take the limelight, Cooper the Bearded Collie made his first two appearances in the show ring this month. While I've had my reservations about conformation showing, I can't deny that he loves the environment, and the training involved is just what he needs - the focus on stillness and a bit of self-control for the show ring is pretty much exactly what we emphasise in our general work with him anyway, and it's been very beneficial all round.  Even though he's still as green as can be, he won his class at his second show; it seems that we're going to be assimilated into the world of the dog show despite our expectations!

If I can extend June to have begun with the end of May, it included a wonderful production of Puccini's Il Trittico with Baltimore Concert Opera.  I started to blog about the experience at the time but couldn't quite find the words; I was flying for days afterwards and found it difficult to process my thoughts without merely gushing. Oh, I knew it would be fun - these were roles I've been dying to sing for ages, and with as many friends as I had in the cast I knew I'd have a good time - but  it was more than that.  Definitely a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the (already exceptional) parts.  It shouldn't have been a surprise. I've known these people for years as musical colleagues on the stage. I worked with them as their "official photographer" for their first couple of seasons.  They're friends.  But  nothing could have prepared me for the sheer musical and emotional joy of those particular performances and I'm so grateful I had the chance to be part of something really special.

The reason I include this in a post about June is that this month Brendan Cooke announced his appointment as the new General Director of Opera Delaware. All I can say is that Delaware is one lucky company and town to have him, and those of us who have known and worked with him for years are pretty darned proud of his achievement!  (Also congratulations to him and his wife Julia on the birth of their second son, just a few days before the big career news broke - what a month for them!)
 
And now, July. Frankly, at this point I'm more than ready for a few quiet days at the beach.... 

What a gift!!

How wonderful to see these broadcasts from Glyndebourne! Highly recommended.

And, as always, The Cunning Little Vixen (just broadcast as at writing) leaves me breathless, tearful, and smiling.

http://glyndebourne.com/cinema-and-online-2012

Dog training for singers?

It's another of those periods where I've had so many thoughts rattling around my head that I struggle to write them down in any coherent manner. This isn't helped by the fact that I almost always think of blog posts while I'm driving, and by the time I'm somewhere I could actually write it down, I've forgotten what it was. (No wonder businessmen love to dictate!).  In any case, this morning, a moment to try and pull these thoughts together.  

The steaming race to the semester finish line has been a doozy.  Our scholarship auditions were earlier than usual to accommodate some staff schedules, which meant for the first time students had to be ready for this important performance before finals/juries/recital week, with necessary extra rehearsals and lessons; I had 5 in for that (and am delighted to say they all did very well indeed).  Immediately following that event, eleven students performed in our end-of term recital, by far the largest number of people I've ever put in for the evening performance.

It would be difficult to express my immense pride in what these students achieved this semester. They sang challenging repertoire - this was not the typical program of "student" pieces, but included difficult blockbuster arias (several of them written by the most technically exposing of all: Mozart), hard-to-interpret Mahler, 20th century songs and a bunch else.  To say they exceeded my expectations is an understatement. While we may "only" be a 2-yr institution, every single one of these young performers - many of whom only started studying a year or two ago! - hit a home run and could easily have held their own at any larger university (and even some conservatories).  I'm still on cloud 9.  They worked hard, they made technical progress, they faced their own demons in the eye and they DELIVERED.   

In the midst of all of this (while concurrently preparing for my next role as a Crazy Cat Lady!), I started a new training class with the furry member of the family, Canine Nosework. This had been recommended to us as a great way of getting a smart but distractable dog to concentrate and focus better - since that pretty much describes Cooper to a tee, we decided to give it a try.  (Bear with me here - this does relate to the previous paragraphs if you read to the end!)

Nosework is different to any other dog training we've done (we did obedience and agility back in the UK, and have done some pet obedience training here).  For one thing, the DOG is in charge once you're working - instead of teaching the animal what your commands mean, you only teach one specific command: "Go find it", and then let them get on with what they would do anyway - use their smarts and their nose to find the prize (in this early stage of training, a yummy treat)!

In just two classes, I've learned a bunch of things, all of which are enormously helpful in continuing to train this Beardie teenager:

1.  Even though it sometimes feels like he's been paying no attention at all, he really has. Whenever he has been confused in this class, or unsure what to do, his first reaction is to look to me for instruction. Getting this smart, butterfly-brain boy's attention during this first year of training has been one of THE biggest challenges we've faced, so it is extremely rewarding to know that the work has paid off better than I realised.   Once he knows what he's doing, he's delighted to be independent, but sometimes he needs to be shown what to do.

2.  He's a barker; we  knew that.  But it has been extremely educational to see how often his barking is not a "demand", but because he's confused, or just plain frustrated.  Realising that makes it a lot easier to redirect his attention to something productive instead of "fight" him on it.

3.  It's just plain FUN.  What a great dog sport!  You don't need any particular skills or equipment, just a willingness to think and learn along with your dog. I'm absolutely loving it.

Interestingly, watching the dogs take the lead and seeing how they parse information is not irrelevant to teaching.  I am definitely not one of those teachers who teaches everybody the same way, or wants them to become dependent on me and my own way of singing/interpreting as some kind of "One True Path". Instead, I want to give them tools which let them make their OWN decisions, and give them the freedom to succeed no matter where their lives and voices take them. At this early stage, this is sometimes hard to get this across - particularly to a generation raised on a "teach to test" principle - and I think some students are surprised and even unsettled by how much I encourage (sometimes even push) them to think for themselves and make their own connections.  But,  if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then it sure worked this semester!

Definitely food for thought for us as teachers; while we are, for sure, there to be guides and ensure they know what's expected of them and how to achieve it (which of course sometimes necessitate specific, proscribed methods and exercises, and even "tough love" on occasion), we do them a disservice if we only teach them to "do as they're told".  Singers shouldn't be trained to be puppets who can only respond when their strings are pulled. Just like the nosework dogs.  Let them sniff out the treat for themselves - it's more fun for everybody that way, and by encouraging and observing what they do, we as teachers can learn just as much about working with them, as they do about working with themselves.

Too many divas and not enough staff....

I'm losing track of whether I'm living a double, triple, quadruple or other -ple life these days!  It's been pretty crazy - in a good way, I hasten to add, but crazy!

Last weekend was singing what may be my favorite work in the entire world: the Verdi Requiem.  I'm a fan of most of what Mr Joe Green gave us, but the Requiem is extra special (and especially for the mezzo).  The schedule this time out was very compressed and singing a massive work like this (the equivalent of a full opera, and then some!) four times in three days definitely demanded every ounce of stamina I posess,  but so worth every single moment. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

This is the third time I've been privileged to sing this extraordinary piece, and each time I've discovered new things not only in the music, but in my own singing. I've found reserves of strength, stamina, colour and nuance I didn't know I had - could anything be more satisfying than that?  I only wish I could sing it more often. I once joked that if I sang nothing but the Verdi Requiem and 3rd Lady (in Mozart's Magic Flute) for the rest of my life, I could still feel musically fulfilled, but I'm not sure it's such a joke - it really is the most immensely satisfying music to sing.

In the midst of this, the Bearded Collie Specialty was in town (a "Specialty" is a dog show which only focuses on one breed, in this case, Beardies).  Not only did we want to head up to say hello to some old friends who we hadn't seen in way too long, but our breeder had heard through the Beardie grapevine that our boy was growing into himself as a rather handsome prospect, and she wanted to see him for herself with a view to possibly showing him. 

I have never been involved in the conformation dogshow world, and this boy was always intended to join us as a family member rather than a show dog. I had no idea how he'd react to all the hubbub of a show environment; he typically gets way overexcited around other dogs and new experiences (rather than fearful - he's absurdly confident) but even though he was interested in all that was going on around him, he was clearly in his element.   I shouldn't have been surprised - he's a real little showoff when he knows he's being admired,  and you can't take him for a walk down the street without somebody stopping to ooh and ahh over him.   But seeing him "switch on" the way he did made it no surprise to learn that he is indeed full of show potential, and that she does indeed want to take him for a spin in the ring.    I'm not sure if I'm bemused or terrified to have another performer in the family (hence the title of this post) - that makes all four of us!  Heaven help us the weekend we all have conflicting performances....

In the meantime, in yet another strand of our lives it is our daughter's 14th birthday (FOURTEENTH?!?!?), and as I write this we're in the midst of a big sleepover party.  It's been several days of battening down the hatches and baking cakes, but judging by the laughter coming from next door, it was worth it.   Singing Verdi is satisfying, all right, but so is the sound of girlie giggles coming from the next room, as well as a cold wet nose bumping my arm for some attention.  Some weeks you really do get to have it all.