Singing for my supper

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 littl...

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'...

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 am regularly reminded by my Dad that I have taken blogging Epic Failure to a whole new level. Five months without a post? Pathetic. I've thought long and hard about why I've found it so hard to write this year. I've half-started any number of posts (at last count, I think there are at least 6 in my "drafts" folder, and those are only the ones I actually got so far as to start writing down), but none of them seemed to gel. Part of the logjam has been diverted attention: 2011 was unquestionably our "Year of the Puppy", and that young, fluffy bundle of energy has taken up A LOT of time. Last puppy we raised was in 1994, and we lived in the middle of nowhere in the UK, with loads of footpaths and hills at our disposal; there's no denying that doing the same thing (with the same high-energy breed!) in a US suburb has been a very different - and time consuming - experience! It's been wonderful, though. For those who've only known me since univ...

Some more photos from "The Daily Coop" (as my buddy over at The Next 100 Pounds has dubbed my tendency to post pictures of the little guy on Facebook): I promise that he isn't really a stuffed toy even if he looks like one! Baby Beardies are unspeakably cute - puppies for this breed (which of course look nothing AT ALL like their adult selves) are hard to ignore. This is, in fact, one of the reasons the breed society is so outspoken about the demands and challenges of this breed once they reach adulthood, so that people aren't seduced by The Adorableness and wind up with an adult Beardie who they can't handle. While they are indeed wonderful family dogs and beyond friendly, they do not stay fuzzy little fluffballs for long and grow into big, high-energy, long-coated dogs who need a lot of time and energy to be happy! Since this is our third Beardie, we knew exactly what we were getting into, even though it's been a while and it's only now I'm rememb...

This packed (intensely hard-work, but ultimately very successful) semester is over and, although I have a new role to prepare for next month and there will no doubt be theatrical musings once I get into rehearsals, life for the next couple of weeks is entirely focused on the newest member of the family: