Internet is finally up!

I've been here for three days already without internet, and it was driving me a little bit crazy. It's amazing how dependent we get on technology! My roommate and I thought it was supposed to be set up yesterday, but we had to wait until first thing this morning. But I'm here now, ready to blog!

I left Minneapolis on Sunday around 10:30 or 11. The other soprano in Opera Omaha's Voices in Residence, Sarah, happens to live in Duluth and picked me up on her way. We arrived in Omaha shortly before 5, in plenty of time for our rehearsal at 6. The tenor, Joe, and the bass-baritone, Darren, flew in Saturday, so they were already settled by the time we got there. Our rehearsal that evening was with the OO (Opera Omaha, got it?) chorus and the music director, J. Although they had only been working on the Pirates music for a little over a week, the chorus sounded fantastic - there are larger opera companies who could learn a thing or two from this small volunteer chorus!

After the chorus rehearsal, J. and Tara, the Community Programs Coordinator, met with the four Voices in Residence about the music we'll be singing on the education tour. There is a LOT of music, people. Seriously, it would have felt like a lot even if we had it in hand before we arrived, but as it is, it feels a bit overwhelming. The schools have a choice of three programs, and although they use much of the same music, the longest one has something like 70 minutes of music. We start staging these at the end of next week already! Additionally, we start rehearsing the music for the Choral Collaborative Concert soon as well - this is the Nov. 2 concert that many of you are attending.

A word about Tara, the Community Programs Coordinator at OO - this is Tara Cowherd, a very good friend of mine from Dordt College. We have known each other for 10 years, since I was a freshman at Dordt and this nice upperclassman started talking to me at a vocal competition. One of Tara's three sisters, Laura, was one of my roommates a couple years later, by which time Tara was already working in the music business at the Omaha Symphony and singing in the OO chorus.

Speaking of singing, it's probably time for me to get back to learning music. While we were very busy on Monday with rehearsals, Sarah and I actually had yesterday off (although the men had a staging rehearsal). I spent much of the day getting myself organized and learning music, as well as nursing a bit of a cold I picked up right before I left Minneapolis. Today I don't have rehearsal until the evening, so it's back to the music scores for now! This is the great thing about living as a singer instead of working a day job while trying to sing - while I have rehearsals in the evening, I can spend my days learning music. I haven't been able to do this since grad school (and then I was doing coursework, too)!