I can't believe I haven't posted for nearly two weeks - so much has happened! Top of the news is that I'm back home in Minneapolis after winning the Nebraska district Met auditions in Lincoln on Saturday, less than 24 hours after arriving back in Omaha from an exhausting week of touring Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa.
Prior to touring, we performed at a couple of events for donors to the opera. On Friday night, we sang arias and songs during a silent auction/wine and scotch tasting in a large, CARPETED hotel ballroom. Oh, and with a keyboard instead of a piano. That was an interesting experience! I have sung for events like that before, but never with a keyboard or in a carpeted room. It's challenging to perform while people are mingling, but I really had to be mindful of the way I was singing this time. It's tempting to 'push' the sound over that din in a room already muffled by carpeting, especially when you aren't supported by an actual piano. It was a good event, though, and I think it was a nice benefit for the opera - there should ALWAYS be scotch tastings at benefits and fundraisers! The next evening was in a similar location, but featured a six-course dinner with wine pairings, followed by a live auction. I was seated at a table with the owner of Omaha Steaks. Fancy!
We started out that week of touring on Sunday night, the 16th, driving to a hotel in Yankton, SD, which would be our home for three days. We did two high school or college shows every day Monday through Wednesday, fortified by the grilled and fried cuisine of South Dakota, nary a vegetable or fruit in sight (sad, sad, SAD - singers do not appreciate acid reflux, even if some of them do rather enjoy the occasional onion ring or grilled ham and cheese). Happily, our hotel not only had an excercise room, but racquetball courts! Darren (the baritone, remember?) pretty much kicked my arse, but at least we worked off the pounds of grease and cheese.
On Wednesday night, we moved our home base to Sioux Center, Iowa, where we gave a concert on Thursday night and our final education outreach show (at my alma mater, Dordt College!) on Friday. It was a little sad, but our voices were pretty exhausted by that point. Then on Saturday, I sang the competition and everyone else went home!
Within the next day or two, I'll write something on what I learned from my experiences, and I plan to continue blogging about auditions, gigs, and making this opera career, so keep reading! I probably have some more pictures hanging around somewhere, too...
Showing posts with label education tour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education tour. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Touring in Nebraska, where the wind goes sweeping...oh, wrong state
Folks, we're leaving in less than an hour for two days in the heart of Nebraska - doing THREE SHOWS tomorrow and two on Friday. Actually, the second one on Friday is at a cocktail party to raise money for Opera Omaha, but the other is a school program.
At any rate, I haven't written as much as I wanted to this week, but it's been busy, and now we'll be gone! Well, when we get back this weekend, I'll share lots of thoughts and stories about hours in the OO van with three other singers, our music director/pianist, and the community programs director. Lots of card games are being planned, and beer has been already purchased! Not for the van, people, for the hotel...yeesh.
At any rate, I haven't written as much as I wanted to this week, but it's been busy, and now we'll be gone! Well, when we get back this weekend, I'll share lots of thoughts and stories about hours in the OO van with three other singers, our music director/pianist, and the community programs director. Lots of card games are being planned, and beer has been already purchased! Not for the van, people, for the hotel...yeesh.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A little bit about the arts and money
Well, since the concert is over, we're back to school programs. Today we did two of our middle school program at the Joslyn Art Museum, and we'll do two more there tomorrow. Apparently, our program is one of the workshops the students can choose in a whole day of art activities at the museum. Isn't that cool? The Joslyn is working with both Opera Omaha and the Omaha Symphony for us to be there. Apparently, there are a lot of grants available for collaboration between arts organizations, and now more than ever, grant money is crucial for the survival of arts organizations. Frankly, any money is hard to come by in the current economic climate. Just this week, Opera Pacific (out of Orange County, California) announced that it was canceling the remainder of its current season due to financial problems. Essentially, the company is several million dollars in the red, and its donors have had to pull promised funding. It remains to be seen whether this is the first of many to go under.
What does this mean for performers? Well, besides the obvious (companies closing doors = fewer performances = fewer jobs), it also means that companies are no longer able to plan their seasons several years in advance. Where opera companies used to plan three or four years in advance, they are now not able to do that because they don't know where the money is coming from. Not only are donors not giving as much, but ticket buyers are buying single tickets instead of season subscriptions, so it's even harder for companies to estimate how much money to count on. This all means that performers are not being contracted many years in advance. For someone like me, who is just starting out, this could be both good and bad. I'm sure you can connect those dots.
I could write more about that, but I won't right now. There are all kinds of factors, including unions, that I don't know enough about yet, and frankly, I am super glad not to be working in arts administration (or any other nonprofit, for that matter) at this point in history. I am VERY glad to be performing, doing outreach for kids who are still totally excited to learn, and working with fantastic people while at this particular point in a singing career, about which I am really optimistic.
What does this mean for performers? Well, besides the obvious (companies closing doors = fewer performances = fewer jobs), it also means that companies are no longer able to plan their seasons several years in advance. Where opera companies used to plan three or four years in advance, they are now not able to do that because they don't know where the money is coming from. Not only are donors not giving as much, but ticket buyers are buying single tickets instead of season subscriptions, so it's even harder for companies to estimate how much money to count on. This all means that performers are not being contracted many years in advance. For someone like me, who is just starting out, this could be both good and bad. I'm sure you can connect those dots.
I could write more about that, but I won't right now. There are all kinds of factors, including unions, that I don't know enough about yet, and frankly, I am super glad not to be working in arts administration (or any other nonprofit, for that matter) at this point in history. I am VERY glad to be performing, doing outreach for kids who are still totally excited to learn, and working with fantastic people while at this particular point in a singing career, about which I am really optimistic.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The outreach portion of the program
Okay, so I realized today that I haven't posted since Monday - sorry! I guess this week has been a little tiring. On Tuesday, we rehearsed both of our school education shows and then presented them both to a small invited audience at the Opera Omaha offices. This was basically our dress rehearsal, and we started right off with two shows Wednesday and two more today.
The programs are both pretty cool - Program A is aimed at high school and college students and adults, and Program B is for middle-schoolers. We open both programs the same way, with an introduction from Rossini's La Cenerentola, and then we dive into asking the kids what they think of when they think of opera. We get a lot of the same answers, usually things like the lady with the horns (costumes!), loud singing or high notes (yes - and no microphones!), dramatic, and foreign languages. We take the things they say and talk about what opera is: storytelling using all art forms (composition, singing, orchestra, dancing, poetry, prose, set-building, costume design). We also sing musical examples from different operas along the way, explaining how composers use the music to tell a story. After each example, we ask the kids to tell us what they think was happening in the excerpt and why they think that, based on what they heard in the music. This is so interesting, because they usually get it right, even thought they can't understand any of the words!
After this, we have the students help us write our own opera, based on this simple text: It was a dark and rainy night. There was a knock at the door. We opened up the front door. It was the pizza delivery guy!
For each of the four sentences, we give the students a choice between two different styles. Is the rain gentle or stormy? Is the knock sneaky or dramatic? Do we open the front door in an exuberant way or a dreamy way? And finally, is the pizza delivery guy evil or the love of our life? Omaha Symphony conductor Ernest Richardson wrote the music for this little experiment, and it's super fun: he plays with melodies from famous pieces of the operatic and classical repertory, many of which the average person has probably heard on movies and TV commericals. The kids get really into this section, and I think it really demonstrates the way music can tell (or even change) a story.
Anyway, we wrap things up in our A program with quartets from Rigoletto and La Boheme. The B program is actually built around the theme of weather, so it includes a quartet from Street Scene and one from Regina, as well as an excerpt from The Blizzard Voices, a new opera that premiered in September at OO. We also tack the Boheme quartet onto the end of that program as well, since OO is doing it in the spring. The students all get vouchers for free tickets to the show, so it's a pretty sweet deal.
That's all for now. I need to go to bed!
The programs are both pretty cool - Program A is aimed at high school and college students and adults, and Program B is for middle-schoolers. We open both programs the same way, with an introduction from Rossini's La Cenerentola, and then we dive into asking the kids what they think of when they think of opera. We get a lot of the same answers, usually things like the lady with the horns (costumes!), loud singing or high notes (yes - and no microphones!), dramatic, and foreign languages. We take the things they say and talk about what opera is: storytelling using all art forms (composition, singing, orchestra, dancing, poetry, prose, set-building, costume design). We also sing musical examples from different operas along the way, explaining how composers use the music to tell a story. After each example, we ask the kids to tell us what they think was happening in the excerpt and why they think that, based on what they heard in the music. This is so interesting, because they usually get it right, even thought they can't understand any of the words!
After this, we have the students help us write our own opera, based on this simple text: It was a dark and rainy night. There was a knock at the door. We opened up the front door. It was the pizza delivery guy!
For each of the four sentences, we give the students a choice between two different styles. Is the rain gentle or stormy? Is the knock sneaky or dramatic? Do we open the front door in an exuberant way or a dreamy way? And finally, is the pizza delivery guy evil or the love of our life? Omaha Symphony conductor Ernest Richardson wrote the music for this little experiment, and it's super fun: he plays with melodies from famous pieces of the operatic and classical repertory, many of which the average person has probably heard on movies and TV commericals. The kids get really into this section, and I think it really demonstrates the way music can tell (or even change) a story.
Anyway, we wrap things up in our A program with quartets from Rigoletto and La Boheme. The B program is actually built around the theme of weather, so it includes a quartet from Street Scene and one from Regina, as well as an excerpt from The Blizzard Voices, a new opera that premiered in September at OO. We also tack the Boheme quartet onto the end of that program as well, since OO is doing it in the spring. The students all get vouchers for free tickets to the show, so it's a pretty sweet deal.
That's all for now. I need to go to bed!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Four days out
I leave on Sunday, and I have not started packing yet. I'm not really the type who packs this early anyway, in no small part because we don't have room for a giant suitcase sitting out for days on end in our little apartment. I am the type, however, who makes lists.
Why is it that big a deal? Well, besides regular clothes and things for eight weeks (yes, I'll have access to laundry - yay!), here are some items I can't forget:
1) One or two gowns for performance
2) Jewelry and shoes to accessorize those gowns
3) A cocktail dress or two (probably for donor events? That's my guess, anyway.) (Also, I don't think I own a cocktail dress, so I'm going to have to be creative.)
4) Stage makeup and stage shoes
5) Musical scores
6) Hot rollers! Curling irons! These are important beautification tools for sopranos!
7) An overnight bag for our education tour (besides the giant suitcase I'm packing with all of the above).
Okay, so technically I don't have to pack that last thing - I can pack more things in it.
Have I told you about this education tour yet? I don't know much about it yet, really, other than we will be singing for school children. I am actually kind of excited about this, because kids ask really funny questions. I still remember when some singers from Opera Iowa came to my school when I was in third or fourth grade: one of the kids asked the soprano how high she could sing, which I'm guessing is a pretty regular question. Frankly, most adults want to know that, too. What else will the kids want to know about opera, do you think?
Why is it that big a deal? Well, besides regular clothes and things for eight weeks (yes, I'll have access to laundry - yay!), here are some items I can't forget:
1) One or two gowns for performance
2) Jewelry and shoes to accessorize those gowns
3) A cocktail dress or two (probably for donor events? That's my guess, anyway.) (Also, I don't think I own a cocktail dress, so I'm going to have to be creative.)
4) Stage makeup and stage shoes
5) Musical scores
6) Hot rollers! Curling irons! These are important beautification tools for sopranos!
7) An overnight bag for our education tour (besides the giant suitcase I'm packing with all of the above).
Okay, so technically I don't have to pack that last thing - I can pack more things in it.
Have I told you about this education tour yet? I don't know much about it yet, really, other than we will be singing for school children. I am actually kind of excited about this, because kids ask really funny questions. I still remember when some singers from Opera Iowa came to my school when I was in third or fourth grade: one of the kids asked the soprano how high she could sing, which I'm guessing is a pretty regular question. Frankly, most adults want to know that, too. What else will the kids want to know about opera, do you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
