Recital is now behind me. The 5 of us all seemed to do better today than we did at Friday's run-through, for which I can think of several possible reasons: it wasn't right after work, at the end of the work week; we had an audience; the audience was composed of family & friends who were rooting for us.
The whole thing only ran about half an hour, including the church chimes sounding a modified Westminster, followed by the 3 chimes for the hour. I had the shortest piece, but even the tenor who did 3 pieces (2 of them little things by Richard Strauss) probably didn't sing for more than 5 minutes. Our accompanist (a concert pianist!) followed beautifully, which always helps a lot. I could feel my voice cutting out on me, instead of singing the smooth, unbroken line I wanted it to give me, but the Chief commented afterward that I sounded "pretty damn good, actually." :D
Afterward, we all partook of the juice & munchies our teacher provided while we congratulated our fellow recitalists. The Chief was "my" only audience member, so I was flattered when some of the other attendees complimented me on my performance. The mother-in-law of one of the other recitalists even tried to recruit me for a motet group she sings with, and for a chorus at the local university! It seems they're short on altos and are getting by with sopranos working in their lower register.
Two women came up to me and told me they marveled at how I could sing "when she doesn't seem to be opening her mouth!" :D When I mentioned that my teacher had been trying to get me to realize that I don't have to open the front of my mouth all that much to get more sound, that I should open the back, they realized that their (voice teacher? choir director?) had been trying to tell them the same thing. They apparently hadn't expected to see that in practice; guess they have something to think about for their next voice lesson or choir rehearsal.
I also did a bit of recruiting among the other students for a production of The Merry Widow I hope to do next year. I especially worked on the 2 men. The one is just starting and doesn't have a big voice yet, but he's a tenor and can hold his pitch. The other has quite a nice tenor and really nailed his high notes this afternoon. He would have a good chance at the comprimario tenor bits, and if he can control his nervous fidgets when he sings, he might even get something bigger.
1 comment:
Dearest Maureen, I wish I'd been able to come!! You'll kill me when you find out why I didn't come, but I'll be honest about it and let you kill me nonetheless -- I barely moved all weekend because I was dying of pain... my doctor didn't feel comfortable doing anything in terms of medication right before I took off for three weeks, and so, I have been dying the eternal death for about four or five days now... *sigh*
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