a moment of pride

tonight we had yet another voci concert – something our department does every year around valentine’s day. i believe i’ve sung classical, or classical-esque, only at these events in the past, but this time around i decided to break out of my mold and sing “mein herr” from cabaret (which is a bloody awesome show), and it paid off. that song never fails to infuse me with energy.

you can tell by my last post that things have been a bit rough for me in the last couple of weeks. i was frustrated in my last post, and then i found out that my high school is going to close (i graduated from there in 2006), and then one of my teacher’s died. tonight was definitely a high point though.

after the concert we had a reception, and i was talking with a lovely couple, and they had such wonderful things to say about my performance. look, you can see it here!

this couple has attended almost all music department events, and therefore, they have seen my development since i arrived here in 2006. they told me, quite sincerely, that i earned the “most improved” award of the night. how sweet is that? i have so many things to be proud of, and i need to remember to not focus on the negative moments in my career. there are so many beautiful thing happening right now, and i’m discovering so many aspects of myself as a performer. so it can only get better from here!

picture from tonight (before the concert):

frustration abounds

sigh, sigh, and an even bigger sigh. sometimes being a singer is a roller coaster ride. especially when one moment you are so confident about something, and then it’s all dashed to pieces.

i am tired. i am sick and tired of people not seeing who i am. i’m not the freshman who was sick to her stomach the first day of class, singing a song from evita. i am not the girl who struggled through her first aria in the first few weeks of class. but apparently only i know that. (i and a select few anyway)

i’m not going to open the floodgates of my frustration upon you, mostly because i’ve learned from past blogging that mentioning specific situations with specific people can get you into a lot of trouble (without even mentioning their name, mind you). but, i really need to lay this out on paper, hopefully garner some support, and just figure this all out.

so i had an audition last weekend for the opera we’ll be doing later this spring at my school – dialogues of the carmelites. i usually get pretty bad audition anxiety, but i’ve been improving at my audition performance. i sang two arias – “when i am laid in earth” from purcell’s dido and aeneas and “ombra mai fu” from serse (we’re doing the opera in english, so they wanted at least one english aria). i pulled the dido piece out from the basement, i guess you could say. i first learned it as a freshman, and last time i tried to revisit it, i reverted back to all my freshman mistakes. not good. i had a feeling about it this time. something told me that i should try dido again, so i took it to my lesson, which was a few days before the recital, and it was immediately evident that it is a perfect aria for me. i sang it once, and it was like it had matured 110%. we spent a little time on it in my lesson, but it was pretty much where it needed to me. “ombra mai fu” has been a bit of a mainstay for me lately.

audition on saturday went wonderfully. once i got in the room my nerves subsided, and i fully committed myself to the emotions of the dido aria. i really felt that i captured the character, and infused it with the proper feelings, and i felt very good about the vocals in general. “ombra mai fu” was a smash, as always. as i was leaving the room, i even heard the stage director mumble to himself “very good work”. i was floating on a cloud after the audition, and figured that i would get a decent part – maybe not a lead, but a decent part.

the cast list went up a couple of days ago, and i am playing a chorus member titled “sister alice”. just sister alice. i know the chorus is just as vital to a production as every other part, but i am just sick and tired of constantly being thrown into the chorus, and it’s not really validating, because here at school, if you try out, you’re pretty much guaranteed a chorus part. there are other reasons for my frustration that i will not go into here, because the specifics should be avoided in such a public atmosphere, but i’ll just say that if it had just been a matter of me being given a chorus part, i would get over it. after all, i’m used to it.

granted, i came here with no experience. i’ve always been a choir girl. i didn’t have a voice lesson until i came to college, so i’ve had a lot of work to do. but i did do that work, and i’m not getting the returns on that work that i should be at this point. i am a junior in my undergraduate education, and i have yet to play a substantial role. how am i supposed to get experience if i am not given a chance. i feel like people in this department still see me as the feeble freshman that showed up a couple of years ago, but i’m not. i’m just so lost, and i don’t know what to do to further myself.

this is just an up and down journey. in my voice lessons i see the improvement, and i know that i have progressed there, and that my singing is much better, and much more informed, than it was a couple of years ago, but then when i look at my performance timeline, i feel like i haven’t moved at all. my teacher always points out specifically how i have improved, and assures me, with obvious truth, that i have the makings of a professional singer, if i want to be one, and i believe it too, but then it just gets thrown in my face everytime i’m not given the opportunity to prove myself on stage.

lately i’ve been considering graduate school, since i’ll be graduating from here in the spring of 2010. and i’m so excited about all the possibilities. my dream school at the moment is the schola cantorum basiliensis in switzerland. they specialize in early music, which is what i’m hoping to make my focus, because i love it more than any period of music, and it suits my voice so well. i’m hoping that i apply myself that i will get in eventually (whether it’s right after i graduate, or a couple of years after). however, after something like this happens, i wonder how i would even have a chance at that when i can only get a chorus part here.

so this is my conundrum.

holiday spirit

some people have a very peculiar way of expressing their holiday spirit, as evidenced by the following pictures:

this house provided me with amusement for a good few minutes. it’s just so awful!!! i can understand some christmas lights, maybe one of those reindeer that bobs its head, but multiple of these inflated creatures?! WHY?! who thought this was a good idea? plus, the electricity bill to keep all of those inflated must be ghastly.

whoever invented these christmas monsters that people put on their lawns really needs to have his brain removed from his skull, and have the space stuffed with rocks, because obviously his actual brain is not very beneficial to society.

in her skin

good evening everyone. so … i just watched atonement. wonderful movie, but it’s made me a bit of an emotional wreck. i tried to read the book over the summer, but i wasn’t able to get into it. i generally don’t watch movies without reading the book, but it was on sale for purchase at blockbuster, so my mom decided to get it, and i’ve been dying to see it.

i have a habit, which i suppose could be either good or bad, of putting myself into a movie when i watch it (usually when the movie involves some sort of romance). that of course can be quite delicious when the plot goes well, but in the case of atonement, it pretty much tears you apart.

now, if you haven’t seen or read atonement and don’t want to have it spoiled for you, i wouldn’t read on from here because i am going to refer to specific aspects of the film/book. here, i’ll even give you some space.

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okay, here goes. so in the film (i will refer to the film since i haven’t read the book, and don’t know how much of the book is preserved in the film), there’s this tension between cecilia (keira knightly) and robbie (james mcevoy), which is obviously sexual tension, and is early on revealed as such. okay, so that’s great, right? love burning in both their hearts, that they just need to reveal? well, the circumstances that push them to reveal their feelings to one another also ultimately ruin their lives. cecilia’s 13-year-old sister, bryony (played by multiple actresses throughout the movie) catches a glimpse of an uncomfortable exchange between bryony and robbie. robbie accidentally breaks a vase, and part of the shattered vase falls into the fountain. incensed, cecilia takes off her dress and goes into the fountain in her undergarments, and when she comes out, she is … well, she might as well be naked, because the material is so thin. robbie of course looks right at her when she emerges from the water, but then turns, as a gentleman should. bryony only sees cecilia removing her clothing, and then her coming out of the water, soaked in her underthings. this immediately plants the seed of suspicion in her mind, which is inflamed by the fact that she has a bit of a crush on robbie herself.

later, robbie composes a letter to cecilia to apologize for his indecency earlier that afternoon, and has difficulty finding the words. at one point, he writes a letter detailing the sexual things he dreams of doing to her. finally, he writes a proper letter, and heads over to give it to her (her brother invited him over for dinner that night, so he was going there anyway). on the way, he runs into bryony, and asks her to deliver the letter for him. all of a sudden, he realizes that he accidentally enclosed the dirty letter inside the envelope, and not the proper one. bryony reads the letter, and deduces that he must be some sort of sex fanatic, and then delivers it to bryony, but not in the envelope. cecilia realizes the horror of what just happened, and immediately speaks with robbie when he arrives. this leads to her confession of her love for him, and they make love in the library (against the bookcase), and then bryony walks in on them. this all finally comes to a climax when later that night, bryony stumbles upon her cousin being raped by her brother’s friend. he runs off, and bryony says she saw him, and says it was robbie. she then tells the police that it was robbie, and he is arrested and sent to jail. he is ultimately given the choice of staying in jail, or joining the army. he chooses the latter.

cecilia leaves her family and becomes a nurse, and meets up with robbie whenever he has leave. the next big chunk of the movie is basically the horrors of war. to make this brief, by the end of the movie you find out that cecilia and bryony never reconciled, because cecilia was killed in a bombing that broke the gas and water lines (she drowned in a subway tunnel), and robbie died the night before he was going to get shipped back to england. its so freaking tragic.

so this is where it becomes problematic for me. if you don’t know already, i have a boyfriend. we’ve been together for a year, and i love him dearly. i also miss him terribly, because we are in a long distance relationship, and i haven’t seen him for a few months. so, to be confronted with a movie like this, in which by putting myself in cecilia’s place i essentially place a death sentence on my relationship with matt, is quite traumatic. i’ll be fine by tomorrow, but right now i’m just a little haunted. i mean, imagine that your boyfriend was wrongly accused of something so nasty as pedophelia, and then only being able to see him a few times a year, living in a ghastly environment, and ultimately being spearated from him permanently, and all of that could have been prevented if your little sister didn’t tell one lie. it makes you a train wreck!!! just seeing two passionate lovers separated is awful enough, but adding everything else on top of that is downright torturous.

*sigh* why do i do this to myself? anytime i ever even remotely consider losing matt in some fashion, i break down in tears. this movie just about sucked me dry. if i had been able to cuddle him while watching it, at least i could have been consoled knowing that he was right there by my side, and that he wasn’t going to suffer and die.

i do admit, it was a very well done movie. probably just not the best set of viewing circumstances for me. i am tempted to try and read the book again, now that i know that there is something interesting to look forward to after the first 30 pages or so. we’ll see how that goes.

it’s never enjoyable to mentally live out your worst nightmare.

faith in the human race

as the election nears, it’s important for us supporters of gay marriage and human rights to make our push for a “no” vote on proposition 8 (for non-california residents, prop 8 is a constiutional ban on gay marriage). a few friends and i made this effort today, by standing on the corner of ralston and el camino in belmont holding our “no on prop 8″ signs. overall, it went very well. there was definitely an overwhelming support for our efforts – lots of people honked, waves, gave us thumbs up, and danced in their cars for us. some even whipped out their own signs and waved them to us. we had a few thumbs down, head shakes, scowls, and people displaying “yes on 8″, but they are entitled to their opinion, so we usually just yelled to them that we still loved them anyway. i met up with denise and elana a little after noon, and then another of their friends showed up later, so between the four of us, we represented straight, gay, and bisexual people. later, two ladies showed up and asked if they could protest with us – they had been standing on street corners in redwood city. it’s always good to meet new people.

the amount of love throughout the afternoon made me feel so fuzzy inside, and restored my faith in the human race. there really are so many things screwed up in our world, but the amount of good people out there often gets overshadowed by all the negative. one car rolled down their window and handed us a bag of candy for us to enjoy while we stood in the rain. another car stopped and did this as well. we had one lady who honked her horn in rhythm and danced in her car for a couple of minutes, while we all danced on the corner. the award for kind lady definitely goes to the woman who parked her car, walked over to us, and gave us all starbucks cards ($5 each) so we could get coffee and warm up. how cool is that? she took time out of her day to go to starbucks (there’s one right across the street from where we were), buy the cards, and then come to us. so sweet. so after standing in the rain for three hours we got coffee and warmed up, and drenched starbucks’ floor (we pretty much got soacked through – the rain started with a drizzle at noon, and progressed to a much heavier amount as the afternoon went on).

more happy stories. i went to karaoke for the first time last night, and it was a blast! karaoke is such a good bonding moment. people really don’t care if you suck – we all just sing and have a good time rockin out. met lots of wonderful people, and i can’t wait to see them again. i brought down the house with “bohemian rhapsody” – the whole place was singing and/or dancing. so, this must become a regular pasttime for me.

those of you who have read my blog in the past will know that i wrote about my telephone calling phobia. well, i made a step in the right direction a few days ago. for my newswriting class, i have have to write an article about a proposition on the upcoming ballot. this involves calling people and interviewing them. i was so nervous about it, and this cloud of dread was hanging over me, but i called the yes on 1A office the other day, and it went really well. i immediately calmed down as soon as i heard the guy’s voice. such a friendly voice. he was really kind about the whole thing and had good anwers for all my questions. he seemed like a patient guy. one step closer to getting over my fear!

now i just want to sleep. got back at 2:30 this morning, and then talked to my boyfriend on the phone for an hour. in general, life is good. i have a recital coming up in a couple of weeks. i am so excited! lots of love to all of you.

*big hug*

a picture:

photo taken by sean pruitt.

umbrella my fool

look! it’s me right now! (right now being a little after 5 p.m. on Friday the 3rd)

okay enough of that! how have i been? decent. allergies have been bothering me a bit this week, so i felt yucky, but things are starting to pick up. had a wonderful day at work today – it was a longer day for me than usual – went in at 11 to do a little project with the advancement office, worked through lunch, and went over to my regular on-campus job at 2, and worked there till 5. somehow, despite not having lunch, my day rocked. tonight i’m assisting my boss with photographs at the volleyball game, and then i think i’ll pop in giulio cesare to watch.

“umbrella my fool” is my friend’s silly reference to handel’s “ombra mai fu”. i wrote this about the song in my music journal yesterday:

today i sang “ombra my fu” from serse. it’s so silly, singing a love song to a tree, and yet it makes perfect sense. sometimes you have something inside you, whether it’s something eating away at you, or just some feeling that you can’t admit to another person, but you need to get itout, so you go to whatever feels safe. the tree makes serse (xerses) feel safe, and consequently, he wants it protected from any harm. it’s like when you love a person – you feel safe in their arms, and you want the best for them. the goal for singing “ombra mai fu” is conveying the deep level of this relationship. it’s not a sappy love song to a tree – it’s an unveiling of something deeper wtihin serse, something that i need to continue to explore and discover in myself.

i decided to sing in class on a whim – i’ve been wanting to sing it, but i needed to learn the recit. i have a bit of a hard time memorizing words, but i finally got it down – or so i thought. i goofed on the words a bit in class, and i was nervous, so i didn’t sing it as well as i can. i’ve found that if i’m singing more than one song in a performance, then by the second song i’m okay, unless i get hung up on mistakes, so i should be fine with this song in our recital, since it comes in the middle of the first act. i just … i just think too much, you know? i analyze too much. there’s so much i feel, but it gets blocked by my brain. damn brain. overall, i thought it went well. but it can get much better.

right now i am just so excited about all my new repertoire, all the baroque music. so much more to learn! yipee!

the recital i refer to in that is happening in november. i and my roommate, who is also a voice major, are doing a joint recital, with a bit of a vaudeville feel in the first act, and more serious in the second act. the best part is that i get to poke fun at some of the songs that i love to sing, such as “but who may abide the day of is coming?” from handel’s messiah. i am so excited for that recital, and once that recital ends, i’ll be preparing for my junior recital, which i’ll probably have next fall (even though i’m a junior now – we ran into scheduling issues with this recital, so it’s pushed everything pack).

well, that’s it for this week. i’m off to work some more now, and then it’s giulio cesare tonight!

insults

It’s important to encourage musicians. One gets the maximum out of singers by not insulting them.
There’s no excuse for nastiness. For example, if a soprano leaves a production crying, or with a nervous breakdown, it’s just bad manners on a conductor’s part. Sometimes I get very angry when I see or hear about that. It’s a lack of humanity – Andreas Scholl

Amen.

early music

i’m thinking that after i’m done with my bachelor’s, i’d like to study early music for my grad program. i may take a couple years off school first, but eventually that’s what i’d like to do more on that later.

added to original post: so, it seems i’m happiest when i’m singing early music (baroque and earlier), and my school really doesn’t have a foucs on that. most of the classical singers (the few that there are – most focus more on musical theatre) sing itaian arias that were written anytime after the baroque and such – handel is rarely heard from, or purcell, or dowland, or monteverdi, or anyone else else amazing from the earlier periods, and it makes me sad. so i’m a lone traveler along that road, which is fine, but i wish i had someone with whom to share this passion (although, my voice teacher is excited that i’m excited).

over the summer, i started listening to andreas scholl, a german countertenor. his voice is everything i aspire to produce – so pure and emotional. obviously, since i am a woman, i can’t really be a countertenor, but i can be a mezzo-soprano who emulates the countertenor tone. i’m hunting down sheet music for many of the songs i’ve heard him sing, such as “ombra mai fu” and the “qui sedes ad dextram patris” from bach’s mass in b minor. still hoping to find the “cum dederit” from vivaldi’s nisi dominus in a library, so i don’t have to purchase the whole score, but i’ll probably end up doing that. i am just so filled with vivacity due to this music. i wish i could spend the rest of my life emersing myself in this wonderful repertoire, and really be a expert in the field. one day, i’d like to sing with andreas, or even just have a master class with him. he attended the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland – what i would give to go there. hopefully i can find and afford some sort of program in early music after i graduate from ndnu. we’ll see.

for your consideration … a song written and performed by andreas scholl, with accompanying video of the beautiful area around his home.

i am a very strange individual …

continuing my random, but pertinent, statements series …

is it wrong that my maternal instincts are kicking in, and the phrase that keeps poking fun at me constantly in my head is “dammit hamlet, my biological clock is ticking, and i want babies now!” (go see the reduced shakespeare company’s abridged shakespeare show – good stuff)

last summer, a doctor told me that fatigue can be caused by doing nothing. how sad is that? and yet, how true of my life? understand why summer vacation is such a drag? i go from doing everything to very little, and as a result i feel like shit almost every day, and yet when i return to school, i’m magically cured. craziness. definitely having one of those days right now …

one would think that a person who has so many interests is blessed in that she could do absolutely anything, that there are so many opportunities for her career, and so many roads just waiting for her to be a success. problem is, which road to take in the first place? what do you do when you want to do everything, and can only do one thing at a time? so claire, what will it be? singer? nurse? special education (for the severely mentally handicapped) teacher? coroner? nurse? photographer? geneticist? communications specialist? composer? model? actress? stay-at-home mom? interior designer/decorator? shoot, i was even told once that i should consider joining the priesthood. someone else (actually a few people) thought it was a shame that a brain like mine was going to waste as a music student, when i could excell in science. most people agree i’m an excellent writer. (except on this blog of course) teachers in all disciplies implore me to be in their program. at this point, if i honored all those requests, i’d be a music performance, english, and religious studies triple major, with a minor in communications, theatre, and dance. you know what makes it worse? most of the paths i seek require education. so when it becomes possible to go to medical school, get my credential, get a million bachelors degrees, and still manage to put food on my table and a roof over my head, maybe, just maybe, i’ll actually be able to be all of those things. for now, i’ll just have to wonder where my life takes me.

white cat fur does not adorn black fabric well.

gregory peck looks quite smashing in blue.

for all of you women out there who are terrified of going to the gyno, get over it. i finally went, and it’s really not that big of a deal. i had this image of a dark chamber, with a creepy, impersonal doctor who sticks weird devices in you, but really, it’s just a quick in and out process, only takes a few minutes, and it looks just like any other room at the medical building. sure, you’re all exposed, but honestly, it’s nothing they haven’t seen, and the woman i went to was quite respectful. so, on one side you have a few minutes of embarrassment, and on the other side your health. i’d opt for health.

it’s amazing how i can still play the violin decently after not playing regularly for almost seven years now.

i’m finally seeing my natural hair color after six years of dyeing it, and i actually rather like it. now if only it would hurry up and grow so i could chop off the remaining dyed bits.

all girls should read silly women’s fiction books at some point in their lives. especially the ones by british authors. it’s like a chick flick in print! gray’s anatomy (the book about the human body, not the t.v. show) is also tip top.

i have issues. i am a neat freak, which sometimes can cause panic attacks when my domicile is not up to snuff (only my own space though – i’ve entered houses that are extremely messy, even one which had boxes from floor to ceiling, and it didn’t phase me). i’m anachrophobic, apiphobic, and talking-on-the-phone-phobic. i can be a perfectionist. we all have our flaws though.

*hug*

tears of eyeshadow

claire should not fulfil makeup tutorial video requests. as evidenced below: