The last lesson with Dennis went so well that I scheduled another one for this week. I sang a couple vocalises to start, and he said I had a decent sized voice. I said that it cuts, but it isn't huge and he said, "well.. it could be." It turns out that all the problems I was freaking out (especially tongue tension) were just caused by poor ( Read more... )

I decided to be pro-active, get up my nerve, and schedule a lesson with Dennis. I have til Thursday to get my voice back into working order (well as close as I can get it in 4 days!). I'm kind of excited! My last voice lesson was April 10, so it will be very nice to have someone to give me some feedback and get me back on track. :-) Now I just have ( Read more... )

I finally got most of my senior recital recording last night, and I'm actually really happy with it. I hear a couple moments of slipping into weird bad habits, but those are few and far between. This is rare.. usually I HATE listening to myself, but I'm actually very proud of this recital. I'm a little frustrated, though, because I was finally ( Read more... )

I've been in Ohio for nearly 4 weeks now, and I'm living with 7 really great people. Much as I love to talk when the time is right, I continuously find myself just sitting back and listening/observing our group interactions. It's really fascinating. The more I observe, the more I find myself getting a little obsessed with the Myers-Briggs test, ( Read more... )

I just discovered that College Park, MD is only 4 hours from NYC! I mean, I don't think I'm going to have tons of time to go run around NYC, but it's like Chicago for me now.. if there's an amazing performance or something, I can get there. And that proximity will be hugely important during audition season too ( Read more... )

I'm going to Maryland :-)

Ok, I'm done whining, I swear. I talked to the Maryland Opera Studio Manager, and she told me everything I wanted to know about the program.. and it's seriously amazing. NOW I remember why I wanted to go there!! So barring Delores having 2 heads (or not absolutely not accepting my newfound soprano-ness)... it looks like I will be headed to Maryland ( Read more... )

Carol responded to my email, and she basically said there's not much she can do. Apparently IU doesn't give singers more than $10k a year, and very few people get that. My $6500 award is the next level down. She thinks she can maybe finagle another $1000, but that would still leave me paying $10k a year to go there, plus living expenses ( Read more... )

Well, IU offered me $6500 a year (tuition is per credit, but will probably be about $20k a year).. so that kind of sucks. However, I've been in touch with a masters student in Carol's studio, and she said that's actually a pretty decent scholarship for IU as far as singers go. She said she'd consider $8k really good.. she actually gave up a full ( Read more... )

Well, April 1 came and went, and I didn't get a single piece of news. How anticlimactic!!!