Sunday, August 14, 2005

....by the skin of my teeth!

I have often bragged about being able to learn music extremely quickly. My background in piano and my knowledge of languages gives me an advantage in that regard, and I've always been able to take on difficult music and projects on short notice. So I've always said..... That has been put to the test this week!

In addition to moving and starting my new on-line job, I've been putting off learning an ever-growing pile of music. Today, I had my first run-through for the production of Hansel and Gretel I'll be in this fall, and as of Wednesday, I only had about have the role in my voice. Luckily, we're doing it in English, so the language is not an issue there. This evening, I had a gig with a lovely soprano and a woodwind octet: a fundraiser for a local school music program. I performed in 4 pieces (two arias and two duets), three of which I'd never sung before, two of which were soprano pieces that I really wasn't familiar with at all, and one of which was in a dialect of French that I could make absolutely no sense of. It all went great, though I was still memorizing music in the car on the way to the gig! (On the bright side, I think I've found an aria that I'll be adding to my audition repertoire as a result, so I'm really excited about that.) Tomorrow, I start the Baroque opera workshop, and I still need to memorize both of my scenes tonight. YIKES! I think it will be ok, though it will definitely be a late night!

Lesson learned -- don't forget to take non-musical things going on in my life in to account before committing myself to so many projects. It's all really fun stuff, though, so its worth it. Ok, back to work.....

No comments: