Woodshedding

While I am waiting here, in Young Artist Limbo, it can be very frustrating and disheartening to receive these rejections and not have much going on and keep the faith that something WILL come along eventually. It always has, so now should be no different. I am stuck with the question of What to Do in the Meantime, though, and I always revert back to what I know: woodshedding and creating my own opportunities.

I am fortunate to have a found a wonderful teacher here in Cincinnati, one who is willing to work with me despite his many demands as a professor at CCM. Under his tutelage I am reworking quite a few aspects of my technique. Reworking technique is difficult because it feels like you are reverting back a couple of years in your training for awhile. And you ARE...you're going back to the time when you started to learn a bad habit (for me, this was about 2008) and fixing it. It doesn't take 3 years to fix it, but it takes a few months of patience, and relearning stamina and diction. So I'm in the middle of that now.

Once everything IS fixed, I get to put my new technique to work...this time in a new recital with Kyra, my kickass cellist in Chicago. We are doing a similar program to the one in September, in that we want to find rep that doesn't include the Baroque period. Personally, I'd like to find as contemporary a program as possible while still making sure the music is Tonal, ie: pleasant to listen to. I think that will open up our venue options once the recital is ready to perform. This challenging parameter is making me listen to A LOT of cello and soprano music these days, and I can't think of a more pleasant way to spend my time.