New Year, New Plans

I keep saying I’m not making any resolutions this year, that I’m going to have a central theme of organization that will govern the year (with a secondary theme of marketing myself as a singer and a teacher), but there are a few things that I’d like to do this year.

First of all, I have created reminders on the first and fifteenth of each month to write a blog entry. I think that my probably-excessive presence on social media has sapped me of finding things to write about, both in my own personal journal and here. So hopefully, these automatic reminders will get me back to doing what I intended to do, and writing about singing.

I realized that I didn’t write about the most important thing I did this year, which was make my NYC debut in October. I was fortunate enough to be asked (through social media – which is one of the reasons I stay on it) to be on a tribute concert on the 25th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s death. I was the only non-NYC person performing, and initially, I was only going to sing Madame Dilly’s Carnegie Hall Pavane from On The Town, which really isn’t much. But in the weeks leading up to it, my friend Lloyd Arriola put out the word that a couple of his mezzos bailed and did anyone want to pick up “Ohio,” “We are Women” and “Some Other Time.” I said, “Sure, I’ll take the latter two!” and then found out 2 weeks before that Lloyd misunderstood and thought I was doing all 3. Fortunately, I’ve staged “Ohio” before for my studio recital, so I knew it pretty well.

It was a very successful performance – everyone was very good, and I made some new connections. But I did drop the ball on a couple of things afterwards.

A friend told me she’d talk to her agent about me. I haven’t asked her about that. I need to.
There was an agent I was going to audition for in NYC in December. I didn’t do that either. I felt overscheduled and just didn’t get to it. Probably because I didn’t have my materials organized.

So there’s the organization thing again. If I had my materials ready to go – an up to date recording of myself, primarily – this would be a no-brainer. 

I also am not entirely pleased with my physical presence right now and want to get back to where I was in June 2013, when I was in really good shape. But I can’t let that keep me from going forward.

A friend of mine told me she couldn’t take voice lessons until she got her voice back in shape because she was too embarrassed to let a teacher hear her. I thought that was ridiculous until I realized I was doing the same thing in auditions and going to work out. I need to accept where I am right now and do what I can, when I can. Because time goes by so quickly and I can’t waste any more of it.

I’ll be back on the 15th with something coherent to say, I hope.