Sad News, and Life Goes On

A few days after I wrote my last post, my friend Abbie died.  I didn't hear about it until the following Friday, from her older daughter.  It is all a shock.  I decided to wait to tell my partner until Sunday (Palm Sunday) when I would be at her house.  She took it pretty well.  And she will forget.  There are days when she doesn't remember that my mother is dead, or that her sister is dead.  It turns out that the cancer Abbie had was in the liver and pancreas, which rapidly becomes fatal.  When she wrote to me she used the word "abdominal" which I took to mean "stomach cancer", which is why I was surprised, because that is a type of cancer that many people survive.

Less important, but to me shocking, is that no one has done anything about submitting an obituary to any news outlet.  I have Googled her every day and there is nothing.  Abbie had written three memoirs, a novel, numerous magazine articles, and had a Wikipedia page (I don't know who managed that).  I also am surprised that she hadn't written her own obituary.  My mother (who was not a "personage" like Abbie but thought she was) had one at the ready at least a decade before she died, so that I could send it to the TIMES.  All I can think of was that Abbie was modest and perhaps her daughters (one lives on the Left Coast, the other deep in Trump Country) aren't interested in their mother's legacy.

The day after I heard that Abbie had died, I sang the Schubert "Ave Maria" at the funeral I mentioned.  It went well.  The Good Friday music is going well.  As an aside, it seems that after three months of struggling with asthma and experimenting with how to treat it, it is gone.  Perhaps it is seasonal.  I was at the point where I was using the inhaler every day. I would say that I had some kind of upper airway distress almost every day between December 27 and April 10.  Fingers crossed.  In any event, that underscores why it is a good idea for me not to plan concerts during that period.  And other than florid pieces like "Rejoice Greatly" I think it would be a good idea for me to stay away from singing anything with exposed high notes in public during that period. 

I have the alto line in two solo quartets from the Missa Solemnis.  I was disappointed not to be given the third (and in some ways the loveliest) solo part, which was given to a woman in the alto section with a pretty, small voice (sort of like a boy soprano).  I suppose the choir director wanted that kind of sound at the very end (she is singing "Agnus Dei" which is the last thing we sing).  I do love my solo quartets, particularly "Christe Eleison".  And of course the new dramatic soprano is singing all the soprano solos.  She sounds fabulous.  Having her there doesn't get under my skin the way having "Little Miss" there did.  Dramatic Sop is enough older (she is 30 or 31 and conducts herself like someone older) that I can sort of look at her as a mentor (if I feel like) not an irksome wunderkind.  On the other hand, of course I am green with envy.  There is nothing that assuages the heartache of wishing I could go back and do it over.  1964 would be a good place to start.  Don't smoke, don't try to be "hip", ignore your mother pushing you to be "with it", and honor your talent.

In other (good) news, I finally heard back from the two places I had contacted about putting on a concert.  One is someplace I have sung before.  So I need to get back in my high dramatic mezzo groove.  My teacher will be singing with me and we will probably sing the Anna Bolena duet.  First up is the little mini concert in May where I will be singing the "Drinking Song" from Lucretia Borgia. 

And on a totally unrelated topic, I may be a media spokesperson for events to do with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. 

Catching Up

I see that I haven't written anything in about a month, which is because I have been busy with the writing contest.  I have done well so far: just mining incidents in my life and turning them into essays. I love to read novels, but when I write, I seem to find it easier to spin out pithy essays that are a combination of memoir, humor, and social commentary.  Like the OpEd pieces in the TIMES.

I have done well in this competition so far.  It started out with 50 people and now there are 13 people left.  They are going to drop 5 people on Sunday (our assignment was to write 5 pieces and the scores for those pieces will be averaged) so if I stay there will only be 8 left.  The final 4 will get some kind of money prize. My goal was to be in the top 10, which I guess won't be a "thing" because 2 people dropped out of the top 15.

I do have some news about Good Friday.  I am going to sing the alto line in the solo quartet in the "Christe Eleison" from the Beethoven Missa Solemnis and probably also in another piece that we haven't gotten yet.  So I will focus on that.  As for a solo on a festival day, I will probably either sing on Maundy Thursday again or on Trinity Sunday (June 16).  And one Sunday in August when there is an "open sing" because there is no choir and no festival days. For Maundy Thursday I may sing one of the Florence Price spirituals - "Rise Mourner", and for Trinity Sunday I suggested the Mozart "Laudate Dominum", which I haven't sung in years, so it will be interesting to see how it sounds.

I am sounding better again because I have a new strategy for taking care of my respiratory problems.  I went to get my annual physical and my doctor told me to use the asthma inhaler not just when I think I have asthma (I have the "cough variant" kind, not the wheezy life threatening kind) but also if my upper bronchial tubes feel full of mucus that I can't dislodge.  I have found that this really helps.  If my bronchial tubes are opened up, I can get rid of the mucus.  It seems to be more reliable than Mucinex.  I could really hear the difference Wednesday at my lesson and last night at choir rehearsal.

The annoying news, though, is I have not heard back from the two senior facilities that I contacted about performing.  I will have to try calling, as the people did not answer my emails.

Lastly, one source of anxiety is that my partner has a squamous cell carcinoma on her face that needs removing.  She had a biopsy last week.  When the results come back she will need to have it removed.  It is just an outpatient procedure (she had one removed from her chest two years ago) but it takes a whole day, and then she has to come back the next week to have the stitches removed.  And as the only way she can travel is on a gurney in an ambulance, we can be in the doctor's office for over an hour after she's finished, waiting to be picked up.  So I am going to draw a line in the sand and say that we can't do anything during Holy Week.  If they can't do it the week of April 1 (and remove the stitches April 8) it will have to wait until after Easter.  It is something that needs addressing, but it is not life threatening.  It is just very stressful to have to juggle these two things, not to mention that she will be put into a new Medicaid managed care plan as of April 1, so all the players that we have to deal with will be different.  And the last thing I need leading up to Holy Week is a lot of stress and time spent screaming on the phone.

Those Who Can Do; Those Who Can't Write

I certainly have always felt that way.  The worse I feel about my singing (either from a technical standpoint or just in terms of where I fit in the bigger picture) the more blog posts I write.

Why am I feeling bad?  I have been singing better and haven't had any more asthma attacks.  The Bolena duet sounds good. I am learning the December Songs.  I may even try to do something with  Winterreise around my 70th birthday.  I can start planning on my 69th.  Thursday I will bite the bullet and ask the choir director if there are any "solo bits" on Good Friday.  I don't expect anything as perfect as what I got last year.  I would be happy with the alto line in a solo quartet or trio.  I think what makes me nervous is that something has given me an inkling (our last writing assigment in a writing contest I am in was "inkling"; now I'm realizing I could have used the inkling I'm about to mention) that the choir director has been talking to the new dramatic soprano about Good Friday, which does not make me feel great.  Even last year when he assigned me the solo I didn't know about it until we had been working on the music for several weeks as a group.

Certain people are always "triggers".  Unfortunately, one of the women I "unfriended" on Facebook (or she unfriended me) because I said something about singers being self-involved, which she didn't like, is the friend of someone who is  a dear friend of mine on Facebook.  This dear friend is also a singer, but she is a good person and has been through a lot, and she was very helpful to me in choosing some lighter repertoire.  (Of course part of me is sad that she has never said to me "You will really sing the daylights out of [fillintheblank with some impressive aria]" the way she has often said to Envy Trigger.)

Anyhow, Envy Trigger, who is probably in her late 30s, and has had her share of heartbreak and depression, nonetheless is now singing "big girl" opera roles here, there, and yonder (noplace stellar, and I don't know if any of it is for money) and I am not.  I feel all that repertoire slipping away.  I have a wider range than I ever had, but the stamina required to do that kind of singing continues to feel daunting.  I can do it if "all the stars are in alignment", if not, not.  I mean I can't second guess myself into the bottom of the alto section, the way a woman in my choir who is a few years older than I am has done.  I'm sure she could sing more than she has been singing, but she has become so phobic (she also hasn't studied in years) that she now won't sing anything above an E and won't really sing solos anymore either.  And on the few occasions when she's had a solo line she sounds very nervous.  I won't let anything like that happen to me.  Just because I blew that high A on a morning when I had an asthma attack doesn't spell doom.  It was a one-off.

So I can sing sweet songs: Hoiby and Rorem and Maury Yeston.  And a few arias here and there.  I can still sing Rossini which flows trippingly off the tongue and doesn't seem to require the stamina needed to pack a punch at the end of, say, "Acerba Volutta". 

I want so much to love my "small life" with my "small performance opportunities" and I pray for that willingness every day - but then there's Envy Trigger.

The Ugly Dachshund Redux

I spent the first six or seven years in my choir feeling like The Ugly Dachshund. (For those who don't know, The Ugly Dachshund was first a book, then a movie - the book is better - about a Great Dane who thinks he is a Dachshund and therefore thinks he's ugly.)

Everything I sang was too loud; I was constantly nudged to want to sing alto (no! as I've written about on numerous occasions, singing in that limited range, which is mostly around my passaggio break, is at best unsatisfying and at worst useless as a vocal workout). I do sing alto in some of the masterworks (particularly Bach) where there are only two women's parts and the ranges of both are somewhat higher.  Although there's still that hated "gap".  By which I mean that choral soprano and alto parts are usually one fifth apart.  As a mezzo, my voice is a third lower than a normal soprano's. Fortunately, somewhere along the line, the choir director started picking pieces with multiple women's parts so I found a home as a second soprano.  It was perfect.  I pretty much never had to sing a high A, but could sing lots of Es, Fs, and the occasional G, which is what I need to be doing to maintain vocal health.  If I am not getting paid, singing in this choir needs to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

Even though as a child I imitated Julie Andrews (my first vocal solo was "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" in a school assembly when I was 6) once I grew up I never had that "float-y", shimmery, head-y sound that characterizes the soprano voice at its loveliest and most ethereal.  When you think about it, neither does Julie Andrews.  I heard a few clips of her singing coloratura arias as a teenager and her voice sounds a lot like Roberta Peters's: bell-like and wiry, but not ethereal, like, say, the voice of Natalie Dessay And then of course I started smoking.  And like most New Yorkers, I speak entirely in my chest register. So it took years of study after I was "discovered" at 54 not just to extend my range upwards, but to liberate all that head voice.  At lessons and at home I do a lot of singing on oo before I do anything else. The most scathing critiques I got about my singing during the early period (when I was going to auditions, between the ages of 56 and 60, let's say) was that I had very little head register and my voice sounded "locked".  I also needed to clear out my sinuses which I did, finally, with the Neti pot.  By 2014 or 2015 the way I sang had changed entirely.  A fringe benefit was that not only was my operatic singing easier, I could also sing a choir soprano part in pure head voice, keeping the dynamic down sometimes as low as pp, without "getting off the voice".

During my "ugly Dachshund" period, I shed a lot of tears over comments from the choir director.  I don't think he ever said anything nice about my singing unless I sang an alto solo.  He didn't want me to sing "Rejoice Greatly".  He thought I should transpose "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" down.  When I said no, he made me make a cut. I felt a lot of despair.  I mean it's one thing to know I'm not singing well and quite another to feel that my voice is simply not to someone's taste so they will never like what I do, even when I do it well.

I am not going to re-hash here all the brouhaha about the singer I refer to as "Little Miss".  That is ancient history and I think the whole thing was a learning experience; namely, that if you're leading a group, it's probably not a good idea to make a "fuss" over one person in public.

After that things went on fairly smoothly for a while.

So I was startled last night by the following.  We had been singing a piece with multiple parts.  Both of the soprano parts were fairly high (the first soprano part went up to a B with an optional C and the second soprano part went up to a G).  The new dramatic soprano (whose voice is at least as big as mine if not bigger) was not there.  There were two very light sopranos singing.  After the rehearsal he went up to one of them (privately) and told her how wonderful she sounded.  Since I overheard them, I kind of gave him a quizzical look and all he said to me was "I know that part is very high".  I told him it was in a very comfortable range for me - I mean my part, the second soprano part, obviously. So he said "it just is meant to be light and sort of child-like".  After that we had a nice talk, but it still stung.  Feeling that one person was getting a compliment and I was getting (once again) some veiled criticism.  I mean I doubt the new dramatic soprano can sound "childlike".  Would he say something like that to her? I doubt it. He always goes up to her and thanks her for singing as if by singing she's doing him a favor. Which I guess she is.  She has a lot of other vocal fish to fry.

I am actually surprised by how despondent I feel.  Possibly, the pain of that disaster on December 30 is still with me although I know it was most likely caused by my having had an asthma attack, leading to a situation where my being short of breath for physical reasons (and also for feeling like all my vocal apparatus was inflamed) led to my panicking and ending up short of breath for psychological reasons.

I think partly the issue here is that the choir director is impressed by sopranos with float-y voices (even the new dramatic soprano sort of has one; her voice is big, but it's not "gritty" the way mine is).  He also likes very young people.  (The woman he complimented yesterday is in her 20s).  It seems that the younger someone is the more likely he is to give them a compliment.  If the person is female.  He also likes low basses.

I don't want to feel sad.  I was so happy thinking about my new plan to focus on nursing home concerts in an active way, not in a reactive way because I see it as the best I can do.  I now have two serious "nibbles" about full-length concerts that I am going to follow up.  Wednesday I had a lesson and we talked about concert repertoire.  I ordered Yeston's December Songs.  I am madly in love with them and can hardly wait to sing them.

Sitting here now I am crying, and want to kick myself.

ETA: It is now Sunday afternoon.  The anthem went well.  The dramatic soprano was not there.  I nailed all the Gs sweetly enough not to elicit a raised eyebrow.  As a point of gossip, "choir girl" (have no idea how I thought up that name for her) didn't sit with the choir because she brought a "guest" to the service.  She has done that before, but the last time at least the guest was her Mom from out of town.  Surprised that that didn't elicit a raised eyebrow.

The Bitter and the Sweet (Fall 2018 Edition)

I guess life is "the bitter and the sweet", hence my repeated use of this post title.

First the bitter (because I'm writing about events in chronological order).

Sunday afternoon I went to an anniversary service for my church's former pastor (the tall, drop dead gorgeous blonde) at her new church, and guess who was singing? Little Miss.  I was in shock.  I had expected maybe a soloist from my pastor's new church, or their choir, but no, there was Little Miss and her violinist boyfriend (whom I always had a great relationship with; he used to accompany me for solos with violin, like the Bach "Laudamus te").

I guess Pastor had invited them.  And I suppose one reason was that she got a "twofer".

In all honesty, I can't say that I was upset that she didn't ask me, why should she.

I think I was upset because Little Miss represents everything I wish I'd had, wish I had, wish I'd done, and wish I'd been (or still was).  First of all she's young and on an upward trajectory.  She has been performing (not singing classical music, but singing) since she was in middle school.  She's been disciplined, admired, curated, what you will, since then.  Of course she put in the work.  I will never say she got something for nothing.  But it's often a feedback loop.  You do well, people encourage you, you do better.  You make friends and colleagues among those who do what you do, and that follows you into the future. 

Now if you were to ask me if I think Little Miss will have a brilliant career and the world's greatest opera houses, I will probably say no.  She is a generic lyric soprano.  Where she is unusual, is/was in exhibiting such technical vocal perfection at such a young age.  She sang the soprano solo in the Brahms Requiem five years ago, at the age of 20, in a totally flawless way, just sitting in a choir chair in a pair of jeans and tossing it off.  She belts, she acts, she sings musical theater, she sings contemporary music.   Probably if the New York City Opera were like it had been in the 60s, she could probably land a spot there.  She has a "feel" for new music and opera in English that's a little bit like musical theater.  And of course she has mentors.  A famous voice teacher from a famous conservatory, a CV containing master classes and summer programs, and her boyfriend, who was a child prodigy with his own Wikipedia page and who has his finger in every possible kind of musical and theatrical pie.

Now I need to add here, as I have said before, that Little Miss is neither conceited nor Prima Donna-ish.  She just is.  She excels, she enjoys it, people gush, and she enjoys that, in a sort of innocent childlike way.

At the celebration on Sunday when I went to the party afterwards to give my regards to Pastor, I ran into Boyfriend and we chatted and then he mentioned that Little Miss was there and wanted to say "hello".  So I did.  I'm sure she was genuinely happy to see me.

So I ended up in a funk for the next day.  There aren't enough hours in the day for me to give myself the kind of polish you get in a conservatory when you spend 8 years there and don't have anything else to worry about.

So on to the next thing.  The Sweet.  We had our last rehearsal for our recital and it went well.  Really the only difficult thing I have to sing is the Bolena duet and it is going well.  Not to jinx myself, but these days I seem to be able to confidently hold onto a high A for 8 counts without choking or panicking as easily as I used to be able to hold onto an F.

And when I was on my way to rehearsal yesterday, I got an email from a woman from another senior residence about doing a 30 minute demo recital.  I had contacted her a while ago about doing a concert of some kind and she said she was a bit leery because the last time she had elicited feedback from the residents they had told her that they wanted more "nonclassical" music.  So she said a compromise would be that I would do a half hour demo recital and she would ask for feedback.  So I can have fun deciding what to sing (and I will ask my teacher if he wants to join me).

And I will order an anthology of songs by Alma Mahler.  Monday night I went to the monthly free chamber music concert at my church (they bring in up and comings; sadly, nothing for the homegrown talent) and a woman sang two songs by Alma Mahler.  The choir director (who runs this program) said I should look into singing some of them.  I told him I had bought a book of songs by Fanny Mendelssohn but had not sung any of them; I said I couldn't find anything suitable for church.  Well, maybe now with the Mahler, the Mendelssohn, and the anthology I bought of spirituals/art songs by Florence Price I can put together a recital of songs by women composers.  Or maybe just add a set to my nursing home recital program.  If I want to do a whole program of songs by women I would have to find an appropriate venue and nothing comes to mind.

Plans for the Fall and Plans for the Future

I now have two concerts planned for the Fall.  The first is in late October and will be at the nursing home with the large theater, where I have already sung twice.  So far this has been my favorite place to sing because it is large enough to invite guests and we usually get a large audience.

The second is in early November at a facility on the Upper East Side, near Sotheby's, where I have never sung.  It apparently only has an upright piano but I was told that there would be room to invite guests.  I will go take a look at the room some time in October.

What will be on the program is not definite yet.  My teacher had some minor surgery so I have not wanted to bother him about the dates. I made the November date definite because as I have never sung there, I can do my solo recital, if necessary with piano solos in between the sets. 

If my teacher is available and in good health, we will be singing two operatic duets, the one from Anna Bolena and the one from Samson et Dalila, and then we will each sing an aria and about three lighter pieces (mine would be "Vanilla Ice Cream", "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", and "Home Sweet Home").  If he is not available (or only feels up for singing a few musical theater songs) I will do the solo recital but will swap out "Tanti Affetti" for "Bel Raggio Lusinghier" from Semiramide (it's going well so far) and swap out "Jubal's Lyre", which I've been struggling with, for Prince Orlofsky's welcome aria which is the perfect thing to start with and would make a nice pair with the "Drinking Song".

As for plans for the future, I finally think that I feel things falling into place in a way that makes me feel that my life has meaning and holds together.  I still hate what I do for a living, but it is the most convenient way for me to make an adequate amount of money working the hours I want or need to work any given week.  At the age of 68 I have accepted that I will never be willing (yes, I have to use that word) to put in the superhuman amount of work (and expense) necessary to train for a career that I would love.  I hate academics, for one thing.  This took me over 60 years to realize, but yes.  I am smart, have a high IQ, have always done well on standardized tests (the kind that require that you think fast on your feet), and love to read fiction; I'm well versed in current events and am "cultured" (and not just in my own area of classical music), but I simply don't have the mental fortitude to plow through "academic blather".  I always wondered if I had ADHD, which I very well might.  Coffee calms me down, for example.  In any event, I want to spend my golden years out and about.  I spend enough time cooped up with articles to edit and that's enough.

Harder and sadder than giving up the idea of a "career", is realizing that I will never be able to sing leading roles with any of the "amateur" opera groups around here, not even the most humble (the one where people sing through an opera from books in someone' living room).  Producing something similar involves too much administrative work (and rejection by people who get better offers and do a bunk, not to mention that they never invite me to do anything), so I have settled for solo recitals in nursing homes.  I have already written at length about that, and I have made a decision to love it, not see it as "second best". I love working with the elderly (I think I'm better at that than working with children although I want to continue what I'm doing with children to broaden my life; I don't have any children who might have children or any siblings who might have children and grandchildren.)

And I have decided that when my Angel gets her wings, if I am still mobile and of sound mind, I would like to work with seniors with dementia.  There are all sorts of things I can do with them, including broadening out from doing concerts (which I will still be doing if I am in good voice and good health) to singing their favorite songs with and for them at their bedsides.  This is a long-term plan, and not one I want to delve too deeply into, because right now I have my Angel and can do these things with her, but it is a assurance to me that life will go on.  I don't think I would need academic credentials to do this as a volunteer; I'm sure my life experience with my partner and my musical background would be enough.

So this will be a life.  Not a boastworthy Upper West Side life, but a good one.

2018 Recital, Take Three, and How I Got Happy

This afternoon I sang my 2018 recital program for the third time.  It was at a new senior residence, with a room that was too small for me to invite guests, although the piano was good.  I didn't feel that I sang as well as the first two times (my highest notes didn't sound as good) but my teacher said that the problem was that the room had a low ceiling which muffled the sound, so that my voice didn't "spin".

But the audience was appreciative, except for one woman who glared and only applauded selectively (she did not applaud for "Tanti Affetti" but did for "Cruda Sorte" and "Mon Coeur"), and then left.

I certainly would be happy to sing there again.

I think this is the last time for this particular program, and I may retire "Tanti Affetti" for quite some time now.

My teacher and I are discussing reviving our 2015 concert of duets.  We may replace the Gioconda material with a duet from Favorita, which means that I will sing the aria from Favorita as well.  Actually, I should call it Favorite, because my teacher is singing one of the bass roles in French, so he will give me a copy of the music for the duet and my aria in French.

And if we do that particular concert we will do the Enrico/Giovanna duet from Anna Bolena, which I love.

Something I realized yesterday is that I am probably happier now than I have been in close to 15 years.  I was very happy for the most part in my 30s and 40s (I was not singing then, but did a lot of traveling and socializing and had one "fun" job, which, although mainly about paper pushing, had all sorts of meetings, lunches, and business trips interspersed between the dull work, which was how things were back before the Internet.  I mean I love the Internet, but it definitely drained all the "social" out of a lot of boring jobs.)  In my 50s I was happy somewhat, but my relationship with my partner definitely had begun to deterioriate.  I was working very hard at a senior management job, and coming home and making dinner because - what - she had arthritis??? And she was becoming more and more disagreeable.  Then I discovered singing, and The Mentor, and all bets were off.  I became someone else.  I don't want to rehash all that here; I have done it enough.  During that period I was often euphoric, so I suppose that was a form of happiness, but then everything came crashing down.  My relationship with him became abusive, I found the minister to be unsympathetic, and she decided to do away with all the classical music.  So I was pretty much vocally homeless.  I discovered (over a period of 10 years at least) that no matter how well I thought I sang, I would never be competitive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where as soon as one group of "emerging professionals" moved on, another took their place.  No "amateur" opera group wanted me; they could get professionals.  And I felt beset on all sides.  If I wanted to produce something myself it was hard to get people to come (who would want to come to a homemade concert of opera scenes if they could hear real music - aka someone's senior recital at one of the three conservatories here?)

And on top of all that I had taken early retirement from my job (which I had come to hate) only to replace it with working at home, alone, at my laptop hour after hour, taking breaks by reading blogs of real singers who were never in the same city for more than a few weeks and endlessly posted pictures of themselves in costume or solicited feedback on their latest head shots.  And I felt totally misunderstood. If I posted or blogged things about how unhappy my colorless life was making me, I was told to just "pull up my socks" because of all the people who had suffered major tragedies who nonetheless always had a full social calendar (I am thinking of one woman in particular who trashed me in a comment to a personal blog - not this one - when she hardly knew me). 

Things began to improve when I turned 66 and could collect Social Security.  I decided that I would never have a "dream career" (musical or not) so I just had to hold my nose, spend 20 hours a week at home copyediting, and then fill my life with nonremunerative activities that I found fulfilling.  Then my partner got on Medicaid.  In some ways, my life as a caregiver looks harder, because I am responsible for coordinating her round the clock care and managing her business affairs, but it really isn't.  I'm an unpaid Geriatric Care Manager, which is certainly a much more interesting "job" than being a full-time freelance copyeditor (being a part-time one I can stomach) and more importantly, I feel that what I do matters.  I am making the end of someone's life more comfortable and sweeter than it would be otherwise.

As for singing, ironically, despite the fact that I keep singing better and better, that singing is easier and easier, my range is wider, and I have more stamina, I have made my peace with the fact that there is no place for me in the "world" of singing as singers (I mean the "Forum Crowd") experience it.  That's OK.  I have made a specialty now of singing in nursing homes.  The audiences are appreciative and I don't have to worry if my friends do or don't come.  Some of the facilities are large enough to accommodate guests, others are not, but for the ones that are, if five of my friends come, that's enough.  And I even got some nice videos.  I don't go to the opera, even though it's around the corner.  And while I would go to something at Lincoln Center if someone bought me a ticket (or someone wanted to go and we made it a social thing), I will never go to any performances by all those opera companies that rejected me.  And except for a handful of people who have gone out of their way to be supportive and nice, I have unfriended all the singers I once friended because I envied and admired them.  My mornings with Facebook are much happier now that most of my interactions (usually with people from church or former coworkers) involve more parity and less of a feeling that I am an unwanted tagalong, only suffered if I know my place.

For now, anyhow, I am contented being a small town girl who just happened to be born in a big city and never moved.

My Four Quads

I wanted to stop by here to let readers know I am feeling much better.

I got another recital date in a senior residence: Monday July 23.  The only problem is finding an accompanist.  My regular accompanist always goes away for the summer and the new one I found will be away that week.  So I'm putting feelers out.  There's an accompanist at church who is really good and who is not busy 24/7, so I asked her and am waiting to hear back.  I might sing a duet with my teacher this time, probably the "Barcarole" from La Gioconda.

This morning I did something that I never dreamed I would be able to do, and which I certainly would not have been able to do even as recently as last year.  The choir sang a tiny snippet from Bernstein's Mass which entailed the sopranos singing four pianissimo high As.  I nailed all of them not just this moring but every single time in every rehearsal. And in my warmups at home, I am singing sustained, float-y high Bs, and even the occasional C.

So it's totally untrue that voices lose range and flexibility as people age.  It all depends.

I also got my summer choir solo date: June 8.  I came up with an idea of something to sing and am waiting to hear back from the music director.

(As for the title of this post, I watch a lot of skating, and have always thought that the way skaters set themselves up for a jump is very similar to how singers - or I, anyhow - set ourselves up for high notes.  So those pianissimo high As weren't just doubles or triples, they were quads!!)

The Bitter and the Sweet (2018 Version)

This is a title I use frequently, but have not used this year so far.  I guess it's just life.

I got the videos from the recital and thought everything sounded good except for the Handel (which I knew didn't sound good because I sang too fast and didn't take breaths that I should have taken).

But

I just hate how awkward I look.  As the evening wore on, I looked less and less awkward, but that's because as the evening wore on, the pieces I sang became vocally easier and easier so I was able to relax and have fun.  But I don't want to give up the difficult pieces that I sing well.  Here's the problem.  I fidget, look worried, do things with my arms to "aid" in vocal production (do these things really aid anything?) and worst of all, for whatever reason, I walked off the stage at the end of "Tanti Affetti" when the pianist had not yet finished playing, to get some water between songs.  Getting water was OK; doing it without letting the pianist finish was not.  It was like when I sang Carmen in costume and forgot to take my glasses off.  What upsets me about this isn't that I don't like how I look; it's that I know these problems are the result of my never having had the right kind of "grooming".  Over the past 14 years I have just about had the time to devote to refining my vocal technique and learning music.  I have not been in any setting where I would be coached on how to walk on and off the stage, look at the audience, and look poised while I'm singing.  This is the kind of thing that someone like "Little Miss" has had going for her since she was 10, and now I guess she's in her mid 20s.

The good news is that I had my first rehearsal with the new pianist today.  I had gotten very little sleep because after looking at the videos last night around 10 pm I was upset and found it hard to stay asleep (I didn't have a problem falling asleep, but woke up several times, the last being at 5:50 am, after which I could not go back to sleep).  Well, I can sleep tonight, I hope.  Anyhow I really sang well, including "Tanti Affetti" so I guess I really own all those high notes and fancy gimmicks and can do them at will (the way I can sing "Rejoice Greatly", which sounds hard to other people).  This pianist is more of a coach than my other pianist, who is predominatly an accompanist (I have never heard him tell me anything about style for example). This new pianist gave me a number of pointers, including about "Mon Coeur", which I have been singing for over a decade.  These subtleties are very interesting and I hope to do them justice.

So now I just have to rest (we have choir rehearsal tomorrow, for which - I think - all I have to do is sing an alto part on a chorus from Elijah) for the next few days.  I have a lesson on the 29th, last rehearsal on the 31st, and the concert on June 2.  Then I will decide what to do next.

This new pianist aspires to be a conductor and has conducted operas with a small company in Brooklyn that has an orchestra.  He asked me if I would want to sing in their opera chorus and I said no (politely).  There is no pay involved and there would be a lot of rehearsal time.  I would rather sing recitals of songs and arias in front of a small audience than be lost in a big opera chorus. I might do it if I were younger and could see it as a step toward singing a leading role, but now, no.

A Feast or a Famine

Well!  After totally giving up on the nursing home where my partner had stayed, which I had contacted numerous times over six months, I heard from the recreation director.  He wanted me to sing on May 5.  I told him it was too short notice, but that I could sing on June 2 (another date he offered).  Unfortunately my regular pianist is not available, so I had to find someone else.  I found someone, but he lives in Washington Heights.  I guess a lot of musicians live there now.  I think I should be OK if I go there to rehearse during the day.  The subways are probably full of people during those hours. I have never been up there so I don't know how scary it will look to me.  My voice teacher will have to come to one of the rehearsals (he is singing with me in both recitals, if I forgot to mention) and maybe I can get him to come to both.  I would rather not be wandering around there alone since I'm not familiar with anything up there.

My other bad news is that I was really sick.  The flu?   I was coughing my head off and for two days I had a fever of 100.  I also felt very tired and had no appetite.  I just thought I had a bad cold, so although I canceled my Sunday sing (it was at 9 and I had not been able to sleep because I was coughing so much) I went to stay with my partner.  She wanted me there.  I stayed Sunday and Monday and then went home, and Tuesday morning the aide called me to say that she had called 911 because my partner was having trouble breathing.  She was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with the flu.  They gave her Tamiflu and iv fluids (they sent her home after 48 hours because by that point she no longer had a fever). I called my doctor, who said that because I had waited four days, Tamiflu would not do any good, and that whatever it was would pass out of my system. It has now been two weeks and I am able to sing and my cough has finally tapered off.  I have not tried to sing "Tanti Affettti" again.  I sang it fabulously at my lesson two weeks ago and at home the next day, and it was the following day that I got sick.  I had a lesson Tuesday and sang a few light pieces, "Had I Jubal's Lyre" (without having to take extra breaths!!) and the "Drinking Song".  My main concern is having enough stamina but the first runthrough rehearsal isn't until May 8, so I am hoping to have my strength back.  I had lost five pounds but am now eating normally, so I will probably put it back, which is OK.  I need that few extra inches around the waist to sing.  And the good news is that if I did have the flu I can't get it again (my partner and I both had gotten flu shots but apparently that hadn't helped) so I am hoping to be healthy for both recitals.

A Somewhat Upbeat Update

Well, I now have a recital venue.  The Salvation Army residence that I sang at in 2015.  I was told that the audience would be small; they are moving and therefore aren't taking in new residents (and some have moved elsewhere because they don't like the neighborhood they will be moving into if they stay), and I can't invite choir people because it's on a Thursday night, but it will be a recital.  I don't know if my teacher will join me.  I have until after Easter to decide, because that's when I have to get the programs out.  (The recital is in May).

It will be basically the same program I have been doing but I am definitely going to add "Tanti Affetti".  I am quite astounded at how easy this feels to sing.  I will take two traditional cuts and am making one other cut (at my teacher's suggestion).  All the B flats except the last one are part of runs, and as I said a B flat now feel the way a G used to.   I had thought of using this aria to replace "Cruda Sorte", but I quite like "Cruda Sorte" so I think I will sing both and pass on the "Violin Aria", which I was going to use to replace the "Habanera", which for now I am totally bored with.

As for church solos, I may have a short solo for Good Friday.  We will be singing pieces by Schumann.  I don't know yet if I will be singing soprano or alto in the choir.  I think the solo in mind is for a soprano but it is not high.

And then I will have some other solo during the season.  The "Easter Hymn" is out because the only time slots after Easter are at 9 (not a comfortable time for me to sing in a high tessitura) so I have offered to sing Mary Magdalene's aria "Saget mir geschwinde" from the Bach Easter Oratorio.

Right now I mostly seem to want to sing Bach, Handel, and Rossini.  Mozart is a question mark.  I struggled (unsuccessfully) with the big "Laudamus te" whenever I tried to sing it.  With my new, more solid, technique and extra top notes (actually "Laudamus te" only goes up to an A; the problem is finding places to breathe and not getting tight) I might be able to nail it.  I don't know.  It would be nice to sing in the summer but we have to get our bids in by right after Easter, so if it feels iffy, I will sing something else.

Singin' in the Cold

(To the tune of "Singin' in the Rain").

This should have been the last post of 2017, not the first one of 2018, but I wasn't at my laptop for much of yesterday.

Yesterday at 11 I sang "Rejoice Greatly" for the second year in a row on the Sunday between Christmas and Epiphany (last year it was on New Year's Day).  I am not sure if I sang it as well this year.  The church was ice cold and I had trouble getting my breath support to work (you know the way you "scrunch" yourself into a tight ball to try to stay warm? well, that does not do much for the expansion you need to sing).  I almost ran out of breath on the first long run.  After that, however, it was pretty smooth sailing.  The only problem is I was so physically out of sorts that I wasn't able to polish my "presentation".  Last year I sang well but did awkward things with my arms (raise them when I needed more breath, then put them down abruptly) and I had determined this year to look more composed.  But this year it was all I could do to get through it.

I don't ever remember it being that cold in the church and I have been there on Sundays when there was several feet of snow and I had to take a cab, or, coming back, have someone "cross me" through the mountains of snow and ice so I could catch a bus.  But indoors I always felt fine.  Were they being stingy with the heat?

So now I need to put something on my calendar; otherwise I won't have another solo singing spot until Holy Week or Easter.

Here's what I've done.

1. Called the nursing home (where my partner was in 2016) at least four times, with no result.  I left three voice mail messages and one message with the recreation director's secretary.  I also got another number for resident services, called it, and it went into the director's voicemail.
2. I got a friend who sometimes works there to speak to the recreation director.  He said he would call me.  He never did.
3. I called the LGBT senior services center where I performed several times and got the name and phone number of the new events planner.  I left her a voicemail message.  I found her email address and sent her an email.  No response. I know a volunteer there; I think I will send her an email this week.
4. I found the name of another nursing home/residence and actually spoke in person to the recreation director (I called at 9:02 am - good strategy!) She asked me to send a video and some more information so I sent her a few videos and a program from my last recital. That was several weeks ago.  I will call her again.
5. Next week I will google "Living Room Concerts" and see what I get.

I was thinking of making New Year's resolutions, but I don't even know of what kind.  Do I need to work harder? Who will know other than my teacher?  Do I need more chutzpah? How would that express itself? Do I need to do a better job of networking? If so, with whom? 

Who Ever Thought it Would Be So Hard to Give Away Something for Free

As one of my soapbox issues is how much I resent people who belittle those who sing or perform for free, I now have yet another argument.  Unless you have a large living room with a piano, it is really not all that easy to find places to do solo singing for free. 

First, the opera and other groups that don't pay people.  Those are so overrun with semi-pros, emerging pros, and pros who can't get work (or aren't paid to sing roles that they want to sing) that they are off the table for someone like me.  I do sing in a church choir that performs high level music (and I insist on staying in the soprano section to keep my upper register in shape) but choral music just doesn't "do it" for me.  Yes, I love being in that choir and aren't giving it up any time soon, but I would like to be doing more.  I also occasionally get to sing a solo, but solos at this church are not a big priority, so we're talking about maybe four times a year.  The church hosts other events, but needless to say because it's on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the people who perform there are "up and coming" chamber music groups.  They even hosted some of Marilyn Horne's foundation receipients' recitals in the past.  A secular-themed talent show for the choir people? Not happening.  They have poetry slams and "coffee houses" for people who sing and play the guitar, but nothing that I would be interested in doing. 

So here's what I've done so far, since I started singing in 2004.

1. Two talent shows at the Unitarian Church, before they dumped all the classical music.
2. One concert at a cash-strapped church that wanted to raise money.
3. One concert version of Samson et Dalila at the church where I sing now, as part of a series to raise money for the Tiffany windows.
4. A concert at a studio that I had to pay to rent, where the air was so foul (they had an air conditioner that they had not cleaned) that I choked my way through it.
5. A concert version of the Verdi Requiem at the church where I sing. I billed it as a fundraiser for their food pantry.
6. A concert version of Carmen sponsored by a woman who runs a group that puts on various sorts of performances.  I also sang in concerts on September 11 and in her living room, but at some point she either "went off" classical music, or "went off" me, or both.
7. Two abridged concert operas at an LGBT senior center (I might call them again; the only problem is that I had a quarrel with a case worker there; on the other hand, she has nothing to do with the special events staff).
8. Two concerts at a nursing home.

If readers are asking "why now"? The reason is that I have come to two dead ends trying to find a concert venue.  The nursing home where my partner was last year, which has a beautiful room with a piano, had originally said that I could get in contact with the event coordinator, but I left him two voice mail messages and left one message with his assistant (live) but they never called back.  Today I got in touch with a library where my voice teacher will be performing with the pay to sing group he sings with (he doesn't pay anything, as they always need men) and they said they didn't need any more musical events right now and that I would be subject to "extreme vetting" (fine, but I think Hell will freeze over before they get in touch with me).

So I just want to put my head down and sob.  I feel that I have all this huge solo voice that's bursting out of me and nobody is interested.  So OK, I'm not a finished product, I'm not young, and I have no resume other than the above.  But to anyone, even a music lover with an ear, who's not an obsessive opera afficianado or a high level trained classical singer, I have something to offer.  And I'm not ready to throw in the towel.

Back to My Fach

Yesterday, I was engaging with someone on Facebook about my blog, after previously, a few days earlier, having read this article about one of my lifelong singing idols, whom if things were different I would move Heaven and earth to study with, and I realized that a post is long overdue.

Things with my partner have stabilized.  I think she will make it to another Thanksgiving and probably Christmas and New Year's as well. She has a hospital bed. She is going to have Moh's surgery next week, and we have an ambulance reserved (it is the only way she can travel).  We continue to enjoy snuggles and tv watching.  Her dementia waxes and wanes.

My 67th birthday passed with pretty much nothing other than my partner "buying" me a Wimbledon towel.  (This means she said I could use her credit card to buy it from their web site.)  It was a lovely present.  To me a "present" should be something you wouldn't buy for yourself.  It doesn't need to be expensive, but it needs to feel like a luxury.  Not business as usual.  A friend sent me a check so I bought two ballet tickets.  If I want entertainment, I go to the ballet.  Going to the opera stirs up too much "compare and despair".

My recital program is set.  I am not singing the Vivaldi aria that I mentioned in an earlier post; it would take too long to learn.  But now that I know I love it, I plan to revisit it.  I am going to sing "In Buddy's Eyes" from Follies.  I will substitute my partner's name (which scans perfectly) for "Buddy".  It is a song that has meaning for me.  I may dedicate it (and "Vanilla Ice Cream") to Barbara Cook, who died this week.

My church solo (suggested by the Minister of Music) is taken from the hymnal: "Jesus is a Rock in a Weary Land".  It looks quite simple, but if I interpolate some high notes and some low notes into the second and third verses (stylistically acceptable) I can sing it with my big dramatic voice.

Because I had been working on this spiritual, I was in a "dramatic mezzo" mode (which I can't be when I sing my recital music which is mostly light) so at my last lesson I took a crack at the dreaded page in Aida: "Chi ti salva sciagurato, etc."  I aced the high B flat.  I aced it at home the next day; with my tendancy to sing sharp when I sing a capella, the note was a B natural. I am singing up to a full voiced C every day.  Maybe I can revisit some of that music, or maybe next year I will look at the French grand opera material I had been thinking of doing.  Whatever is going on in my life, I'm a dramatic mezzo and this material is what I am meant to sing.

My Heart is Full of Sadness But Yet My Heart is Full of Joy

My partner is home from the hospital, where she was rushed last week after becoming septic, most likely from a cat bite.  Our cat Darby, whom she adores, and who has slept on her bed throughout the latest phase of her decline, bit her when she kicked him in her sleep because he had been playing with her toes.  Twenty-four hours later she had a fever of 103 and was semi-conscious.  The aide called 911.  She was in the ER for almost 48 hours, then in a bed for the next three days.  They gave her about 10 bags of antibiotics plus some pills to take home.

Despite not having a diagnosis (her heart disease is controlled with medication), she is fading.  Basically, all the symptoms she has are those of someone dying of what used to be called "old age". This article, which I found by doing a Google search, bears this out.  I don't know how long she has left.  No doctor has said that she has six months or less, and that therefore she should be in hospice.  On other other hand, pain is not her problem.  Lack of a life force is.  Here is a list of what is happening now.

1. She never gets out of bed.  She refuses all attempts at physical therapy that involve trying to walk, even though she had been able to do this in March in the nursing home.
2. She eats very little.  Every passing week she eats less.  Now mostly she just drinks Ensure, eats ice cream, and drinks milk and water.  She refuses meals that she once liked. (I have told the aides that if she refuses food she has to have a bottle of Ensure.)
3. She sleeps most of the time.
4. She is confused about the time of day, what day it is, and when I am coming, although she knows me and all other people she has contact with.
5. She has lost interest in most things other than snuggling, her own body, ice cream, and cute programs about animals on tv.
6. Her hands are cold.

I can't be with her all the time but I want to be with her more than I used to.  I have to work 20 hours a week and want to sing (more on that later - that's the "optimism" part) but I don't want her to die without me there.  A friend who has watched several people die said that as the actual time approaches I will know.  Then I will take both cats (I couldn't bring Darby back to her house when she came back from the hospital) to her house along with all my blood pressure medicines and just stay there.  I stayed with my mother when I thought she was dying, which was 48 hours before she died.

I don't think she is suffering.

As for the optimism, it is ironic that I keep singing better and better (my voice keeps getting bigger and the high - and low - notes keep getting easier) but am no longer interested in all that heavy 19th Century Italian music.

My teacher and I are going to put on a concert on October 1.  As the piano where it will be is out of tune (or was last year) we are not doing a lot of opera anyhow.  We were going to do the duet from La Gioconda but he said he feels that it is too high for him now, so we will do the duet from Samson et Dalila that precedes "Mon Coeur" and then I will just sing "Mon Coeur".

We also talked about some mezzo and baritone duets from the French repertoire.  I might enjoy doing those so we might do a Shakespeare-themed concert next Spring.  I would love to do the duet with Gertrude and Hamlet from the Ambroise Thomas opera and then we might do the Henry VIII-Anne Boleyn duet from Saint Saens' Henry VIII, which is based on the Shakespeare play.  And we could end with something from West Side Story.

So life goes on.....

Just an Update

I called Amsterdam House (the nursing home where my partner had been, which has a beautiful room with a piano) and they said they were totally booked for concerts in 2017.  I said I would like to book something for the Spring of 2018.  They said that they weren't taking bookings yet - to wait until the Fall, then call, although the man who coordinates all this took my phone number.

When I told my teacher, he said, no, I shouldn't wait that long, that I should call the nursing home where I put on my birthday concert.  I was hesitant to do that because the piano was out of tune, but my teacher said it didn't really matter.  He had been to that concert and hadn't been disturbed by the piano.  So I emailed them and now have a date to sing on October 1.  I will use my birthday concert as a template, but will remove some pieces so that my teacher and I can sing a duet and he can sing an aria and a few songs.

I can't believe I am saying this, but finally after 12 years, I am bored with both the "Habanera" and "Mon Coeur".  I am going to sing the "Drinking Song" from Lucrezia Borgia.  My teacher and I will sing the love duet from La Gioconda.  The last time I sang that was with The Mentor.  The point here is to focus on material that is upbeat.  I will of course sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", "I Dreamt I Dwelt" and "Home Sweet Home".  We will then decide the rest.

I can't believe I am saying this either, but I think I've reached the point where I'm bored by the heavy Verdi and verismo pieces.  I am just not in the mood for anything heavy right now.  My teacher said this is because my life has been sad and stressful.  This does not mean, however, that I am going into vocal retreat!!  My upper register continues to be easier and easier (although my teacher said I don't need to vocalize above a B most of the time) and I intend to tackle some new difficult pieces ("Tanti Affetti" from Donna del Lago comes to mind) just to see if I can do them.  That has numerous B flats but most of them are in elaborate coloratura passages which is something I am good at.

We are almost out of the woods with my partner and her health issues.  We are settled with the managed care company.  She will continue to have 24/7 home care, but not the split shifts.  It will be three different people sleeping in.  We will have two of the people we already have, and then will have to find someone new for Tuesday-Thursday because the woman who has been with my partner in the daytime on those days does not want to sleep in.  There are still problems with her landlord not accepting the checks I write on the Supplemental Needs Trust bank account but I think those may be on the way to being settled.

Now I am off to sing an 8 part "country" piece to welcome our new pastor.  I am a little nervous because it will be my first time singing the second soprano part with the first soprano part.

Now I Will Always Have Cash on Hand

Well, right now it almost seems that this is becoming a cat blog instead of a singing blog!

As of Monday, I have a new member of the family.  

If you read my previous post, there was a black and white cat (sort of an imperfect tuxedo) named "Cashew" whom I met at the Koneko Cat Cafe.  

Well, now he's mine and I've renamed him "Cash".  He's sweet and loving and low key and likes to snuggle.

The only worry I have is that he has a nasal polyp that needs to be removed.  The rescue people will pay to have it done, in fact they offered to have that taken care of before they brought him to me, but I didn't want that, I wanted him here to cherish for a while.  I said I would contact them about the surgery after my concert.  It is not an emergency, but my primary care vet said that I need to get it done because the polyp could get bigger and cause problems.  Right now it just causes him to sound like he's snoring when he's sleeping, and his purr is a bit gutteral sounding.

Here are some photos.

His favorite places are the pillow that Charlotte used to sleep on, and this kitty condo.  It hasn't had a cat in it for at least five years. 

In other news, Trovatore is going really really well, and I have had fun working on the script.

Maybe these pastiches of opera and narrative are a new "niche" that I have found?

Calm After the Storm

Now we have new music to work on.

Ironically, one is a piece by a little known 20th century composer named Booth (he used to be the music director at the church in the 1930s) that was inspired by Lohengrin.  I would never in a million years guess that the piece was written in the 20th century.

It is absolutely gorgeous, but the soprano part involves way too much sustained high singing for this mezzo.  We're only talking about Fs and Gs, but it's a page that sits up there with noplace to take a breath. The alto part is in a decent rage (goes up to an E flat).  So I told the choir director that I would sing alto on that piece.  Ideally (and I only thought of this after the fact), with the current assortment of singers, the piece should be sung SATB as written with the second sopranos dropping down to the alto part for the last page.  This would be fine if there will be a high soprano or two to sing the top part.  I have no idea who will be there that day.  The irony is that I easily could have sung the soprano part in the Mendelssohn because it moved around and there were piano interludes between the parts that were sung.

Basically the problem (for the choir as a whole) is aside from the handful of trained lyric sopranos (who don't sing regularly) what the section has is me (a trained mezzo) and a group  of women with no training.  I can sing higher than any of them except one, and none of them can sing legato, so they need someone to hold the part together, sort of the way egg holds certain cooked dishes together (odd metaphor, I know).  So it's fine if the part doesn't sit high, then I can play that function.  Otherwise not, although it's rare for there to be a piece in so high a tessitura that I can't sing it particularly if I can sing full voice. (The alto section already has at least one, maybe two, women who sing with a nice line, they just don't have a wide range.)

Of course the upshot of all this is that high sopranos (and of course men) are highly prized and women with lower voices are not.

In any event, this is a beautiful piece of music.

So now it's back to working on my birthday concert.  This will be an opportunity for me to do a variety of different kinds of things that I don't usually: sing nonclassical music, research some of the songs and come up with things to say in between the sets, and connect to the audience through the spoken word.

I can invite 10 guests.  Whether my partner is one of them I guess remains to be seen.

Ah, Schadenfreude! And Now Let's Move On

Well, Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30 (I was really wired both about the upcoming service and about some plans to do with my birthday concert that didn't work out) and then was only beginning to be able to get back to sleep when the alarm went off at 6.  So OK, I got five hours of sleep, certainly enough.

When I got to church, there were only three (second) sopranos, none with any training and really only one who knows how to stay on a part so of course the section sounded God awful.  The Director of Music was there conducting and he had to work with them separately.  There was one line (no high notes; went up to a D) that was very exposed that they could not sing at all, apparently, so the three higher altos (me and two others) ended up singing it with them.

Do I really care which part I sing on a gorgeous piece of music like that?  No.  Mendelssohn writes lovely alto parts that have a decent range.  The reason I was so angry is that it's all about perception.  I don't like being made to feel like a big oaf trampling on someone's flowers, which is so often how I am made to feel.  If that were counterbalanced by the choir director's occasionally saying something like "thank you babydramatic for holding that note without breathing!" or calling as much attention to something I did well as to something I did (in his opinion) badly that would be fine.

Also IMHO it was a wrong-headed decision to arrange the women the way he did.  If I were in charge of that particular assortment of women (I am being totally objective here) I would have kept me with the sopranos (there is already one alto with training) and told the sopranos not to sing the high A because really no one except a trained lyric soprano (not a trained mezzo with a loud voice and certainly not untrained sopranos) can sing it decently.  I could certainly hold the part together, sing the high Gs (which were all marked forte; they were not "float-y") and the balance would have been better.

Well, now it's on to the next thing, a lengthy piece in Hebrew that sounds a lot like Copeland (and it turns out that Copeland was the composer's mentor, so yes! I am developing a trained ear!).  It has eight parts and the second soprano part is quite easy to stay on (also it is written with only two parts per staff).  Sometimes there are only four parts and the soprano part goes up to a G, but it is definitely something I can sing, including one note that probably is float-y.  I just have to work on it.

As well as working on the music for my birthday concert.  A lot of it is non-classical (although I can sing it with my "legit" voice) so I want to work on style.

And a dear dear friend, the woman who gave me the idea for the birthday concert in the first place, who has very little money and lives mostly on Social Security volunteered to send me a bouquet of flowers for my concert.  She said she had wanted to surprise me but then thought she needed to know which day to send them, so I told her, and thanked her profusely.  Yes, that's what thoughtfulness looks like.

Yes! A Real Beginning of Something Real!

Today I got an email from the events manager at the venue where we sang on Monday and she said that people loved us and were thrilled with the performance.  She asked if we could come back and do something new in the Fall.  The email went to my teacher and his wife (and the pianist).  I wrote to him separately saying "Let's discuss this at my next lesson".  We had talked about doing Trovatore or maybe Samson et Dalila.  I had wanted to work on the scene from Tannhauser with Venus, but I don't think that's "accessible" enough for this type of a venue.

Also we will have to come up with a good script.  The Merimee novella is literature.  Opera plot synopses are not.  But we will come up with something.

In the meantime, here are some stills from the performance (still no videos).