Singing for my supper

Nul points for me on the blogging front this month, I think. Student juries and recitals, a delicious string of Messiah performances, Christmas preparations and a feast of food and family (groovy alliteration, huh?!) have kept me good and busy. It's been an unexpectedly joyful season this year, which was a lovely boost - good music and good people do a lot to restore one's faith in humanity, and I had ample supplies of both this month. Looking forward to adventures in January with a family trip to the UK, and a new production of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro starting rehearsals in February, giving us much to be excited about - hopefully this time I'll have enough energy at the end of the day to write about it! In the meantime, the happiest New Year to readers: 2010 has seen things start to look up again after such difficult times for so many in 2009 - keeping fingers crossed that 2011 continues the trend!

Giving Thanks, Giving Back

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I was one of the lucky 15 invited to join David Hobby on an "advocacy journalism" shoot (definitely a case of being online on the right day at the right time and thus responding before he closed the opportunity!!). The landscape and architectural subject matter is very different from the kind of thing I usually shoot, but I really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to stretch my legs and, of course, work with Mr Strobist himself, David Hobby, the genius behind www.strobist.com . Other than the fact that I have little experience with this type of photography - most of what I do involves people in relatively controlled environments rather than buildings or fields and at the whim of nature's light! - the most intimidating part of the day was that we had to turn over our unedited files to David. The protocol was for us to shoot - jpg, no less (I always shoot raw if only as a CYA measure!) - mark the ones we liked b

The worlds collide. Again. Sunday, we opened the Poe recital. It went extremely well for a first outing, I'm happy to say: a momentary glitch as the page-turner grabbed 3 pages at once resulting in the usual flurry and slapping of paper that accompanies such things, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly. The Poe-settings were well received, and we can also now say that we have taken Erlkoenig and nailed it to the wall! Actually, if I'm honest, that was probably one of the most enjoyable pieces of the afternoon for me - I've wanted to sing it for many years but never had the right occasion or quuiiitte the courage to ask a pianist to learn it for me, so I'm thrilled to have done it at last! Similarly, it was a real pleasure to finish the program with Sondheim's A Little Priest from Sweeney Todd - while it is a memorizing nightmare ("Wait - was that verse vicar or friar? Is this the one about beadle or rear admiral?!"), it is an absolute delight to perfo

Radio interview with WBJC's Dyana Neal here

Preview of "Telltale Hearts and Twilight Fancies" from The Baltimore Sun here

Today: home maintenance as my husband (bless him!) deals with gutters and reapplies the roof-elastomeric glop which (in theory at least) keeps our roof water repellent, kids alternating between playing outside and watching "Glee" upstairs, and I'm working on promotional materials, dates and repertoire for the Poe recital; after the Roof Glopping, we'll squeeze in a quick rehearsal. I think this is what counts for a "normal suburban Sunday" in this household.... (?!?!?!?!) The Poe recital seems to be gathering momentum. We enjoyed our radio interview (recorded last Monday, an edited version to be aired the week before Halloween and the full version to be available here soon) and are gratified that folks seem interested in the concept -we've been excited about it since we started planning it, but it's nice to know we're not alone in finding it an intriguing idea! As we head into the home stretch before the first performances, we find we're fal

In between rehearsals this week, I also was busy with a couple of photoshoots, including a 40s-style session with a friend. We had a blast! More Poe-recital ruminations coming soon, but in the meantime, a touch of Old Hollywood in the 21st century..........

True confession: I finally started following Twitter. I made an account a while back but didn't quite catch on to how it worked, and it's only now that I've been making a point of checking it regularly. (You can find me @MezzoMG if you're interested in following.) After two weeks of active participation, while I can see how it could be a potential time drain - especially since so many of the accounts I follow are linked out to articles, news stories and blogs - it has also drawn my attention to some really interesting things I might have missed otherwise. So with that in mind, in no particular order, a blogroll of some sites which have recently caught my interest: A Hit, a Very Palpable Hit (@vlavla). I found this linked off an article about the Hamlet, John Simm, but the blog itself is a wonderful account of what we all go through as performers as we put together a significant show. Excellent stuff. I Value the Arts (@ivaluethearts) Widely circulated through soci

Let's face it - there's a point in a musician's life (ok, in THIS musician's life) where you start to think you're pretty well-versed in repertoire. You've studied, listened and learned. You've been around the business a while and are a self-confessed repertoire-holic (even as a teenager I used to dig through volumes of song and choral rep just because it interested me). And when you're married to a musical polymath as I am, that tends to put even more repertoire in your path so, once you're familiar with most of what's regularly presented, know what's available as a recording, or know what you (or friends and colleagues) have actually performed, you shouldn''t expect too many surprises, right?? WRONG!! It's a particular delight when a previously unheard-of composer comes to light. Deodat de Severac , in this case. Mr Musical Polymath had heard of his piano works in passing, but was entirely UNfamiliar with his output of delic

I had such high hopes for regular blogging while I was away. I figured I'd have enough spare time on my hands that I could write a little more than I do at home, and really consider some thoughts that have banging around my head for a while now. Well, to say that the gig was intense is an understatement. Absolutely wonderful, inspiring, stimulating, challenging (in all senses of the word) and happy, but more all-encompassing than anything I've done in many years. Most days I was simply too tired to write by the time I finished rehearsals, and with few breaks in the performance schedule (in Operaland, when things usually slow down a bit if only because there are often days between performances) I just never had the energy. It would be impossible to overstate what a phenomenal experience the 6 weeks were, in all ways. The cast was one of the most collegial with which it has ever been my pleasure to work; given that we were all housed on campus (some of us sharing apartments) an

Which, after yesterday's 103-in-the-shade (no joke), felt positively balmy. Mishmash, in bullet points: Long but beautiful drive north - armed with some great audio (how wonderfully easy it is with mp3 players!), I took the long way around both to avoid traffic and to enjoy a more scenic route, which I most certainly did - clinging to the interstates or the main routes with their endless vistas of strip malls and fast food it's easy to forget how beautiful the US landscape can be, and the semi-rural route I travelled was definitely the right choice. Settled in, got the internet up and running, and now getting down to business... Costume fitting: Neither purely in period, nor purely not, but a wonderful pan-national-pan-period-couture style that immediately adds ideas for character. It's great to have seen the costumes so early on, too (I don't start staging until tomorrow) because it means I can factor that in as we start to rehearse. I finally tracked down a bicyc

11 musical numbers and 12 dialogues to finish memorizing before rehearsals start on July 6th. Two photo shoots to complete. School's out. Heatwave. All washed down with a healthy dose of "Gene-Genie-isms", since our continued march through the British TV we've managed to miss in the last 5 years includes currently catching up with Ashes to Ashes (aside: it's slightly dangerous to let my husband watch this program in the large quantities we're currently enjoying it, since his dry sense of humour and Manchester upbringing mean that he lapses into his own brand of Huntspeak all too easily. The plus side to this is that I haven't stopped laughing in about 4 days, so I'm not really complaining...). Next up: doing every scrap of laundry I can find so I leave the troops with clean clothes. And packing.

or, perhaps, "La Jeune Fille aux iPod Violet" I'm enjoying a couple of days off before the likely maelstrom which will be June begins next week, and this idea dropped into my head for a photo challenge with the theme, "Yesterday or Tomorrow". I couldn't resist....

Firstly, given the sight that greeted me this afternoon (picture) I think it's fair to say that my roses really liked spending February buried in 6ft of snow, and I suppose the current wet and warm (but not too warm) conditions must be agreeing with them too! They've put on a spectacular show in the last couple of days, and it's pretty exciting to see what I had envisioned when I planted them three years ago! They stretch up the entire length of fence on the west side of the house, and there's another swathe of them at the back as well. I'm amazed! I'd never thought of myself as a "real" gardener before I started The Great Rose Project in 2007 so it's even more satisfying. In the meantime, starting the countdown towards the next gig - and I can't deny I'm looking forward to the role, and the many surrounding events which will be going on around me concurrently: in addition to operatic performances, this festival will offer a lot of int

Well, I think as a working mom I'm always a bit of a split personality, but the past couple of weeks have taken it to new heights. The recital two weeks ago went far better than I could have hoped: I had set myself some particular goals and challenges, and I think that I achieved what I'd set out to do, which was very satisfying. Not to say that it was a "perfect" performance (what's one of those?!), but that I had given myself specific goals, and even in the heat of performance was able to follow through with what I had planned. I can't ask for more from myself, really, so even if had it been meaningful to nobody except myself, I'd have been thrilled! But it got better: I'd initially thought that these things were more significant as technical explorations for myself and would be too subtle to really have much impact, but apparently not - the audience responded quite strongly, even if they didn't know why something had particularly affect

For anybody else who, like me, is a BBC radio junkie, I can heartily recommend this little utility, Radio Downloader . Simple and easy to use, you select the programs you'd like to hear, "subscribe", and the software goes and fetches them for you automatically as soon as they're available at the BBC radio website. I find this more appealing than live-streaming since I can match up the broadcast time with my own time-zone wherever I am, which is particularly nice when listening to news broadcasts (I can enjoy "Today" over my morning coffee again!) Highly recommended.

I recently picked up some books I've been promising myself to read for years, one of which is Patsy Rodenburg's extraordinary The Actor Speaks . While much of Rodenburg's book is the building blocks of actually making and manipulating sounds, there is a LOT (and I mean lot ) of the philosophy of acting and LIFE mixed in. Best of all, coming from the British tradition of theatrical training (of which I'm very proud to be a part myself - not a day goes by when I don't thank the RNCM in one way or another for what they gave me) voice and body technique is not skipped in favour of emotive expression, but the why's and wherefore of how one turns that physical technique into text and, ultimately, heightened emotion are explored ... which is precisely the journey we take as singers. One of the best books I've read in years - I can't believe I waited this long to buy it. I can see it's going to become a constant companion, since so much of it easily &qu

I'm not quite sure how it went from the carefully planned work curve I mapped out for this month to zOMG, but it has. So, this is just a short update. I suspect part of the sudden feeling of 0-60 comes from losing a lot of "normal" daily life to the weather (I believe we're now up to about 80" of snow for the season, and it's just started dumping it AGAIN), and also to the wonderful 4-day-trip to Vancouver to take up a friend's invitation to see the dress rehearsal of the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. The trip itself was wonderful, even if travelling in-between snowstorms was more than a tad complicated! But we managed to make it both out and back, so one mustn't complain. In the meantime, back to memorizing a LOT of music for a lrecital I'm doing next month. Watch this space for more news!

Inspiration is a funny thing. I've written several times about taking it where you find it - however unlikely the source - and, in general, I've been lucky in that way. I've always felt motivated to go above and beyond just because something, somewhere, made me think about how I could go further and how I could use that thing which inspired me in my own artistic efforts; a kind of "paying it forward". Whether it was a new interpretation of a poem or character, a director's vision, an exciting "catches fire" performance , some kind of extraordinary musicmaking , a colleague's commitment , or just the music itself, there's always been something out there to feed my artistic imagination and keep me coming back refreshed and motivated for more. Hardly surprisingly, last year was too destructive to leave much room for being inspired. Sure, a flicker here and there, but I guess the comparative lack of performing opportunities and my own gloomy

No, not the Hollywood film, but the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's socially conscientious, almost-penny-dreadful, almost-epic novel of the same name set against the Dark Satanic Mills of 19th century "Milton" (Manchester) in "Darkshire" (Lancashire) which we caught up with over the last few days. How on earth we missed this one when it was first released in 2004 I'll never know, but better late than never! Firstly, this is without a doubt one of the best period dramatizations I've ever seen. Period. It has the usual beautiful and historically-accurate production values one has come to expect from the BBC's lavish television adaptations of classic works, but seems to go even one step further with a sumptuous score that out-Finzi's the man himself, and cinematography that takes your breath away. Eat your heart out, Hollywood. Enough of Mrs Gaskell's own dialogue is left intact that you are inexorably drawn into her world where change and tr

I've thought long and hard about what to write at the turn of this particular New Year, following one of the hardest years in a long time. Just about everybody I know has kicked gloomy, broody, unpredictable and unkind 2009 out the door with considerable relish, and is passing on hopes for a better 2010. While I heartily agree, I hesitate to repeat the same message yet again so I'll just take this opportunity to wish everybody a VERY Happy New Year with renewed commitment to face whatever challenges come our way. And leave you with a slideshow of images from 2009 ... a reminder to myself that perhaps it wasn't all bad.