Here I am, with naught but two weeks left of my master's degree, stressing over journal articles, aria analyses, grading students' homework, and memorizing music for my final jury. I'm not going to pretend like my course load is any worse than anyone else's, but it is a lot. Especially while planning an album and getting ready to record.
I am currently getting final copies of scores from composers, rehearsing with my collaborators, and defining my role as performer. Which seems strange, but I feel is even more important on a CD than in person. When I am giving a recital or performance of any sort in front of an audience, I am able to connect with them vis a vis, while on a CD I have to portray everything through my voice. This is proving to be a difficult but important lesson. I am being forced to explore my use of timbre, dynamic, and phrasing in a very different way than I have in the past, creating almost a conversation-like atmosphere in the music. I am also relying more upon my collaborative pianist, Scott Koljonen, much more than I have in the past; he is a partner in conversation rather than background music or support. He and I have been working one-on-one quite a bit to create this dialogue and figure each other out as musicians. This is my favorite part of music.
Beyond learning the music, this opportunity has allowed me to work with the composers of the works I am singing. This rarely happens, as we opera singers deal with much older works and "dead white guys" more often than not. In this situation, I am able to simply ask the composer what he or she was implying with dynamics or vocal lines or phrasing. I can find out what the text means to them and why they chose those particular pieces. And, in the case of one composer who is also a vocalist, find out what vocal colors and effects he would have me use throughout his song cycle. This is an invaluable chance and I am so grateful and excited to have it.
But along with this comes the finishing of my course work. Writing papers on my favorite shows, analyzing arias that I have worked on but never really seemed to have the time to formally analyze... I am even working on an article for my pedagogy class that must be journal-ready. This has led me to have to do research into what journals to which I could submit, read up on a subject I know absolutely nothing about, make educated assumptions and remarks about said subject, and make it interesting to an audience of my peers. As a 23-year-old soon-to-be-graduated masters student, I had never really thought of myself as someone who could speak with any authority to my colleagues and, indeed, my mentors. But here I am, being required to do so and it is stretching my abilities and forcing me to take even more responsibility than I already have.
So there you have it, folks. An update on my current education and projects. I feel so blessed to be at a point in my life where my education is finally reaching its first zenith (or plateau, though that doesn't sound quite as hopeful), and I am being forced to fully grow up. Unlike Peter Pan, however, I am fine with occasionally wearing a tie. I love school, though I am a bit tired and ready for the real-world jobs. I am ready for this adventure called life, and I am ready to grow up.
In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and one of the brilliant composers with whom I have the privilege of working:
"Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at they door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
Awake! arise! the athlete's arm
Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
Produces only weeds at best."
