Opera Singing in Germany and other adventures....

Maybe the title of this post was enough for you to already shake your head in acknowledgement of what I mean. Perhaps you know the scenario all too well yourself: you practice your music day in and day out (mostly alone and sometimes on a rare occasion with a teacher or with colleagues/friends), and eventually you get curious or bored (whatever the case, depending on the day) and decide to see how you 'measure up' to other musicians who are in your field (singing your same genre, having your same voice type, playing your same instrument....you get the picture). BAM! Before you know what's hit you, you've listened to several media samples on scarily-good-looking websites from people with whom you're kind of in direct competition (again: you are in the same genre, they have your same voice type, you play the same instrument, etc..) and you're feeling pretty bad about yourself and your musical progress in comparison to what you just heard/saw. The worst part is th...

The title of this post may have already resonated with you, but I was so moved by reading another article that I found in Opera America's Newsletter (yes, again!), that I felt I needed to share more details.  Perhaps you yourself have read the article (called "Amid Choruses of Despair, An Aria of Hope" in the New York Times ) already? At any rate, it might have been obvious to you too that this article was a good one, though it brought up a practice that is all too common among Opera fans who mean to do something good for the art form.  For those of you who haven't read the article, it basically talks about the great resurrection of the San Diego Opera, which is back up and running and indeed hasn't been sucked into the abyss with other opera companies that are no longer existing. To this I say- wonderful! A triumph! Another established and important cultural bastion is saved! However, the author goes on to examine some of the problems that were contributing t...

So earlier today I read this article  titled "So You Want to Be An Opera Singer" on Huffington Post, which I saw advertised in Opera America's Newsletter.  Even though I had never heard of the article's author, I thought to myself, "That's no big deal- this field is huge! Maybe he has something really helpful to say." Well, I was way off!  And utterly disappointed after reading the article, I might add. The reason why I am taking up your time and mine right now to write a post about said article must make you wonder though, right? Of course. The answer as to why I'd choose to examine such a generalized piece of journalism such as this is because I simply can no longer stand idly by and do nothing as I have in the past. Previously I may have believed that because I was "still a student" or "hadn't gotten my first meaningful and noteworthy professional gig yet" meant that I wasn't qualified to talk about these subjects wi...

So, to start this off, a small ironic anecdote for your enjoyment! I was recently reading an interview with Joyce Di Donato in the September Issue of Concerti  (I think it's solely a German publication-not sure- don't shoot me if I'm wrong) where she said something akin to it being tough for her when she first got to Europe because she did 13 auditions and only got hired for 1 of them. It was at this point where I laid the magazine down and thought "Sheesh! If only that were my ratio!!! It would be a heck of a lot better than only 2 auditions in this past  year's time and 0 hires." I picked the magazine back up, read a bit further and found surprisingly that my reaction was incorrect (apparently) because Joyce was seriously distressed about this 13:1/failure:success ratio. It even made her stop and completely re-evaluate her approach to discover what she could do better. Now, does this all seem a bit silly to you? Do you find yourself thinking the sam...

Did you ever wonder what sorts of things make the holidays cheerful and bright? Perhaps you have a favorite tea, or cookie, or evening ritual which is sacred to you that brings just the right amount of coziness to your Advent season.  Though, I'd bet anything that music is one aspect of your holiday atmosphere that you simply couldn't go without.  I mean, at the first sound of "Jingle Bells" on the radio most people get in the Christmas spirit. Now, I'm certainly not a classical music snob, and I thoroughly appreciate all of the popular secular Christmas songs that are out there, but the sound of a Christmas Carol sung by a children's choir is, to me, the pinnacle of all of Christmas' musical incarnations.  Therefore it was only fitting that my well-informed Boyfriend purchased tickets for us to attend the recent Christmas concert performed at the Essener Philharmonie (Philharmonic in Essen, Germany) by the Hannover Knabenchor (Hannover Boys Choir) and ...

Okay, this particular infographic got a lot of facebook shares about a month ago, and I'm just getting around to breaking it down for you all.  I'm not sure if looking at it once (though they say that a picture's worth a thousand words) really communicates the concepts, for those of you who aren't visual learners, and because I think it's very important to grasp the information that this graphic presents, I'm going to talk about it a bit in this blog post, so that we can fully appreciate all the wonderful benefits of music, be thankful for them, and share them with others as often as possible! :) But first, if you haven't already- look at the infographic below (my commentary follows at the end).    The Psychology of Music infographic First of all, the most important message that is contained in this infographic isn't found at the top- it's found in the middle- where the two graphs show the importance of music in education.  These two ...

This past Saturday, a combination of nice weather and guilt (we've not been there once yet as 'tourists') inspired my boyfriend and I to take the train to Bonn and look around with inquisitive attitudes and wide-open eyes.  Well, in case you were worried, fear not- we certainly liked what we saw!  Bonn is a beautiful city located on the banks of the Rhein river, about a half an hour's train ride from Cologne (also known as "Koeln" when speaking German).  The charm and beauty of Bonn lies in the architecture of its buildings and their color palette.  I'd wager that 98% of the buildings were painted in pastel hues (light yellows, pinks, blues, greens, oranges, and various shades of ivory) and looked as if NYC's Greenwich Village was relocated to Germany- I kid you not!  Nearly all of the buildings in the center of the old part of the city ("Altstadtkern" in German) had large multi-pane windows, which were sometimes also arched or in the shape ...