Opera Singing in Germany and other adventures....

So, lately I have been encountering what seem to be roadbumps along the path of success.  And the most recent is actually the lack of practice rooms with pianos available to me in Dortmund.  I have asked everyone that I know, and I am now desperately begging churches and public spaces in Dortmund with pianos if I may somehow have access to those pianos when they are not otherwise employed, because the pianos that I was happily using, without bothering anyone else of course, have now all been securely locked to those who are not music students at the Technische Universitaet Dortmund.  To which, I say a firm and resolute "DRAT!" Therefore, plan B, which has yet to come into existence of course, must be quickly enacted, otherwise, as they say in America and NOT in Germany, "I am f*cked!" for my upcoming auditions.  Because of the urgent nature of such a situation, and possibly the knowledge of you, dear Readers, I am asking anyone who knows anything about possible pi...

A Dutch trashcan-'Restafval'. Called similarly in German: 'Restabfall'. So, normally on any given Sunday  in America I wouldn't have the chance to visit another country within a day's drive of where I live in Pennsylvania.  Yesterday, I found out that this was not the case if I live in Germany.  Or, I guess, for that matter, many locations in Central Europe. This is me with said trashcan. Yes, yesterday I was able to drive two hours (or, rather, ride as a passenger) to the lovely city of Rotterdam where I visited my lovely friend Ashley and her beautiful family and then when almost compelled to begin the drive back to Germany was instead persuaded by my adventurous boyfriend to explore the city further for a few more hours as the daylight dwindled. Ah, bikes! cool buildings at downtown harbor. Luckily, he had the right idea with that instinct.  We were able to see a lot of things, even though it was a Sunday in the later part of the afterno...

Hello Dear Friends/Family and those of you who belong in none of the above categories, but still simply subscribe to read about my zany operatic life and adventures: I am lucky enough to have arrived in Germany safely on Thursday morning (9/9/10) in Duesseldorf International Airport and survived my relatively quiet and stress-free flight from JFK on Wednesday night (and there were no screaming babies or people kicking me in the back of my seat- and it was AIR-BERLIN- can you believe it?!).  At any rate, I am slated for a few important auditions coming up here in Germany and I am excited and prepared for some wonderful experiences.  I will be posting entries on this blog as often as possible (I will try to go back to my 1 post per every 3 days rule from earlier this year), but if I haven't posted anything in a few days, I might be traveling to or from an audition and have no mobile internet access.  If that is the case, please be patient, and something fun/informative, o...

This is just a quick message to all of you, Dear Readers, that I will be back to posting at this website in the middle of September, since I am currently working very diligently on completing many applications for the fall audition season in Germany and America.  Wish me luck! (No really, good luck wishes are very much appreciated!!) And I hope, of course, that you all are enjoying a wonderful summer and are excited for the next post when I am finished these applications.  So, I'll be in touch soon, or as they say in German, Bis bald!

Last Sunday, July 18th, I was not expecting anything extraordinary to happen. I woke up, ate breakfast and got dressed. My boyfriend wanted to visit some 'world's longest picnic on the Autobahn' or whatever it was he was talking about excitedly a few weeks ago, so that was on the agenda, as well as getting some more practical work finished for my upcoming auditions and voice program in August. Naturally, my curiousity was peaked when he had mentioned something like this a while ago, but normally highways and picnic tables don't provide my imagination with a feeding frenzy of zany imagines, so, I simply thought, okay, let's see. Honestly, the idea of this whole project didn't sound all that exciting: the Ruhr area decides to close a major highway on a Sunday in July to open it for pedestrians and picnic tables on the one side and bicyclists and skaters on the other side. Doesn't really bring to mind the next Woodstock or Lallapalooza, does it? Espec...

Hope you all are doing wonderfully and just wanted to update you that I will be unavailable to be on the internet and updating the blog from August 1st through August 8th but that I will be back online once I get back to the USA on August 10th. Don't worry- just because I won't be in Germany at that point, you can still check on the blog here for all of your Julia's-singing-life-and-life-in-general updates. I will be posting whatever strikes my fancy in terms of musical interest or otherwise. ;) But, be aware- this isn't the last post until that time- I just wanted to be kind and alert you all ahead of time! So, the posts will keep coming until August 1st, 2010 and then after August 10th! Just in case you are wondering what this program actually is, and why I will be taking part in it from August 1-8th, have no fear, the explanation is here! (What can I say? I like rhyming!) The Lotte Lehmann Akademie is a program that is held in Perleberg, Germany this year (an...

So, I have been notoriously bad at keeping abreast of the wave of things that have been happening here lately, however, I am making it up to you all right now by filling you in! This post will be dedicated to my positive experience in Stuttgart at an audition for their Bundesagentur fuer Kuenstlervermittlung (which covers the German States of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Saarland and Rheinland-Pfalz, and that's it--I think!) and which is basically a different branch of the same government agency that I visited in Cologne in June, but only covers the regions listed above in the parentheses. This particular experience was much MUCH easier and enjoyable than the one in Cologne from the very beginning. It was a four-hour drive to Stuttgart (closer to 4.5 more likely) and it was a gorgeous day! The sun was shining, it was hot and the sky was blue- so far, so good. Then, miraculously, we did not encounter a single traffic jam on the way there (which is a miracle considering that summer is ...