In the Zone

I sang my first DMA recital last night! One down, two to go.

Performing a solo recital is very different from either a chamber recital or a show. No one can share the responsibility of being on stage with you, and it's less collaborative and more internal. The process itself is anything but solitary. I had much help, support and critique from my teacher, coaches and accompanist. But in the end, it's just you singing up there.

If anything taps into your fight-or-flight response, it's the first number of a recital. Starting is always the most difficult for me. If I sing "poorly" then I will continue to stress about what is coming up next. But if I do well (as, thankfully, I did last night), then performing begins to feel like a flow state activity. Many athletes talk about playing "in the zone" when they're doing well. It's the same for musicians. When words and notes are all memorized and you know how everything feels, it's possible to let go of your stream of thoughts and just be the characters of the songs. It was an amazing experience!

A Blog Post? No Way

I realize there has been gross negligence of this blog lately. This morning I woke up early, so there is time for a post!

It's almost my birthday, and I will ease out of my mid-mid-twenties and into my late-mid-twenties. I'm trying to do so gracefully, and with 9 auditions lined up in the next month, grace would be nice!

Doctoral work is coming along. I'm finding my theory and advanced German courses to be the toughest, but manageable. Next semester I'm taking Vocal Pedagogy, and will hopefully gain more insight into the vocal mechanism, which should improve my teaching even further.

My first doctoral recital is coming up in a week! I'll be singing works of Debussy, Rossini, Rorem and Stinson. I'm so happy to be able to present my husband's work on stage. I should probably get back to writing program notes instead of this blog post.