How did that audition go? Oh, and prizes!

The "audition" went great.  Mary Sue and I basically just flipped through my arias book and she had me sing random things to test me out through trouble spots in certain arias.  It was really a lot of fun!  Of course some things I hadn't sung in three or four years, so they were very problematic, but she also wanted to see how quickly I could change and how I take advice.  I ended up getting a great little lesson.  The biggest problem was that I had just come from an hour long lesson and the only break I had from singing was the bus ride to the church!

So, some cool things she told me: picking the best pitch in the phrase and sing around it, counting my vibrato, and of course using my air more.  So, picking the best pitch in the phrase was kind of cool to keep from switch the timbre too much.  This worked especially well in phrases going from low notes up to my middle voice to keep me from pressing too much on lower notes and then not having the right position in my middle voice and thus losing overtones.  I'm going to go out of order from my list to talk next about the air thing.  It was the same problem I encountered when I had a coaching with Mark Trawka at Pittsburgh Opera last year in that I often back off the air when I go down in pitch instead of keeping the sound alive.  Also, I change the majority of pitches in my throat, not with my air, which is bad.  So, that's something we worked on a bit and I know needs to change, so it's sort of up to me.  But my coloratura was really cool when we figured it out in that brief amount of time.

Now, the coolest thing was counting vibrato.  I'd heard of doing this to get a more pleasant sound, but never to actually know how to release a note.  She had me count how many reps my vibrato went through on high, dramatic notes, and then always release on an odd number; that way I was always releasing UP instead of down.  It was so cool!  The sound keeps going after the note, and it works especially well if a note needs to be released tenderly instead of dramatically.  Probably the coolest thing we talked about.

So afterwards we went to get some coffee and talk, and then walked around Florence for several hours.  It was a great time.  She said she'd like me to come to Arizona to visit her Rotary club and maybe do a concert.  She also wants to introduce me to some great directors, conductors, and composers.  So exciting!

So, speaking of Rotary, I've had some great dinners and social events with them lately.  Last night we had a gala d'auttuno with the theme of Casino Royal.  I was afraid that more people would be in tuxes and only a few of us with be in suits, so I wore a black suit, white shirt with French cuffs, and a silver tie.  Some guys had tuxes, most of us were in suits, some were in jeans and hoodies.  It was really cool though because we got a lot of chips and two free drinks with our cover charge.  The only games they had were Poker, Roulette, and Blackjack.  I was holding out for a while on Blackjack, but I gave up and began playing Roulette, and losing a lot.  Also, I had to explain how to play to some people all in Italian.  After a while of losing and being down to only a few chips of hundreds and a 500 I left, hung out with friends, and kept having a great time.  But eventually I went back, played at a different table, and did alright back and forth and got a little bit of money back.  Then I got mad because the guy spinning the wheel sucked and the wheel would stop spinning before the ball finished.  Not exciting, so I left.  Same thing of hanging out with people, dancing, making new friends and everything.  Then a friend gave me some chips because he had won a lot at Poker and was going to Blackjack.  So I went back to a table, and started playing high stakes and getting a lot of chips back.  It was a lot of fun and on the last spin I bet 2,000 on black, 2,000 on the cross with 35 black, and I bet around 6,000 or 7,000 on the column below 35.  And, as luck would have it, the ball landed on 35 black!  But then the jerks just said, "okay, done!" and left.  They wouldn't even pay us!  And then I argued and they just kept telling me it was the last roll and didn't matter, but of course there were prizes to win and I'd won something like 16,000 or 20,000 in chips.  They didn't have enough 500's for me!  So, I told some of the guys that knew me and they helped explain it to the guys giving out the prizes and I won a gift certificate for two to a spa outside of Florence and two more free drinks!  Great night.  Made a lot of new friends, got prizes, and was the only American not speaking English.  There were at least two American girls there that I only really met by them being at my table or because I heard them talking to other people, and they weren't even trying to speak Italian.  Not even for simple colors and numbers!  Very strange to me.

So anyway, had a great night and met a lot of new people and got closer with my other friends that were there.  Soon I'll update you all on the really cool Italian Thanksgiving I had!

Audition of my lifetime!

Hello all!

So sorry to have not been posting very much.  Such is life I guess.  But, I have an extraordinary story for today! Today it was like everything just magically came together by meeting one person.  Mary Sue, and I don't know her last name, was presenting a check to St. James Episcopal Church here in Florence this morning.  She had actually sat two rows behind me the whole service and I could tell she had some sort of musical experience when we were singing the hymns.  It was an extremely musical day today!  There was a wonderful tenor there today who sang three very lovely pieces, the last of which was Panis Angelicus as a duet with our music director.  He sang from the altar and she sang from the choir loft in the back of the church.  A-ma-zing.

Anyway, my morning was filled with music.  After the service, Mary Sue and I began talking about what I do and where I went to school.  She almost went to CMU for voice, but decided on Curtis instead.  Yeah...but she was a great friend of Lorenzo Malfatti and was actually in Lucca when I was there two years ago, we just never met!  I gave her my card and she saw Rotary and said, "hey, I'm a Rotarian!" and I proceeded to tell her that I'm an Ambassadorial Scholar and she demanded that we meet again sometime this week.  She also wants to go to a meeting this week, so I just sent a quick e-mail to try and find a meeting to go to this week and I'm very excited.  We talked off and on a bit more and it was all fantastic.

Afterwards I went with our guest tenor, Grahm, to grab a drink with Mary Sue and a music director at the music school in Fiesole.  So, Mary Sue and I began talking more about what I do, what I want to do, etc.  I talked about my senior recital and the recital I just did here so that she could get an idea of my rep, and when I mentioned the Old American Songs by Copland she taught me an amazing lesson.

Aaron Copland, Lee Hoiby, and Lorenzo Malfatti were three of the first Fulbright Scholarship winners EVER and they all studied in Italy at the same time.  Copland wrote the Old American songs FOR Malfatti, who did their world premiere at St. James Episcopal Church WHERE I SING IN ITALY and I sang six of the twelve on my recital, in St. James Episcopal Church.  O-M-G!  Chills when she explained this to me.  She also knew Copland and still knows Hoiby.  She thinks I should meet Hoiby and perform some of his work....

So, she said that she has to hear me sing.  Thus, we are meeting up on Tuesday of this week and I'll sing for her.  SO NERVOUS!  To me, this could really be the audition for me.  She knows so many people, and is so gracious, a Rotarian, graduated with Dr. Page's daughter from Curtis (yes, they're friends and were in the same class I believe).  And she wants me to come to Arizona, where she lives, and perform for like Rotary or something.  Ugh, overwhelming.  Anyway, that's the newest and biggest news.  Hopefully I'll have a great follow up this by the end of the week!