Through this whole auditioning season, I've been thinking a lot about my strengths and weaknesses. Me being me I usually tend to focus on my weaknesses. But I revisited a particular scripture that will always speak volumes to me:


"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9


In my experience, no one likes to boast about their weaknesses. However, it never ceases to amaze me how much more I depend on God because of them. Later in my life, I can look back and see His glory shine through my weaknesses and hurts. Here are some of my weaknesses:

-often take things too personally
-low self-confidence
-perfectionist
-selfish
-a long personal struggle
-often very hard on myself

These are just a mere few of my imperfections, but God uses them anyways for His purpose. Because I am so hard on myself and do have issues with low self-confidence, God enables me to remain humble with my singing. It's a daily reminder of how much more work and effort I need to utilize the gift God has given me. As my mother used to say, and still does, there will always be someone better than you. And it's true. Art is subjective and not everyone will like what I bring to the table, and that's okay.

My personal struggles and hurts have allowed me to be more aware of others' feelings and empathetic to their hurts. Sometimes they even find comfort in the fact that someone else has understood their struggle and hardship. Even though it will always be a struggle, I am thankful for the experience because I've learned so much and because I have been able to be useful because of it.


Anyways, I'm off my soap box, but it just really makes you think about things, ya know?


In other news.....BREANNA BROWN MADE STATE QUALIFYING TIME IN THE 500 FREE STYLE!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE EVEN TOOK OFF 5 SECONDS FROM HER BEST TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can we tell I'm a proud big sister?! Breanna goes to State Conference in 2 weeks. So proud :)

Also I have my performance dates for L'enfant et les Sortilege at WSU. I will be on the Thursday/Saturday night cast on March 4th & 6th at 7:30pm in Wilner Auditiorium. Other than that, not much to update on. Lots of ♥ to you all, especially with Valentine's Day just around the corner ;)

So as several of you know, I am a stress magnet. Some of it is self inflicted, and the rest I just seem to attract. My body has now decided to react due to that and I have some acid reflux problems :(

I noticed that for several days my voice was feeling pretty crappy and I wasn't sure why. My top and bottom parts of my range were the worst, which is not normal for me. Thanks to my fabulous voice teacher who knows so much about health and medicinal things I now am able to treat it. I did a search as to what foods I should stay away from for a while....it was like someone jotted down my usual diet and put a big NO on it...I miss my spicey foods, coffee, and citris fruits!!! I am trying to get a better handle on this before Tuesday because that is my audition for Opera North.


In other news, I received my acceptance letter from Florida State University today, yahoo! Now I just wait to hear about acceptance from the other 2 schools and see what scholarship offers happen.

Other than that, not a whole lot to fill you in on...just trying to decompartmentalize my stressful life one step at a time. I will be SOOOO much happier once mid March rolls around; most of the stress should be gone by then. Anywho...hope you all are doing well!

Hello all :)

I realize it's been a while since my last update and no I have not forgotten my promise to be better about updating. As proof, notice the lovely new template that I've added to my page and the new music player on the left. I came across this Christian artist, JJ Heller, about 2 weeks ago and absolutely fell in love with her work! I think what I love best about her music is that the lyrics incorporate her faith with her everyday circumstances. It just seems more heartfelt to me. Anywho...check her out and if you want to hear some of her other songs, just click the next button on the ipod screen.


So....I am FINALLY done with all of my graduate school auditions!!!!!! YAY!!!!!! I have to say it is such a relief that it is out of my hands now. I flew up to University of Maryland last Tuesday afternoon and had my audition at UMD the next day. I absolutely LOVED the campus, the music building and all of the students and faculty that I met while there. I felt that I had a great audition and they really seemed to enjoy it as well. Unfortunately they are only accepting 10 new graduate students: 5 men and 5 women, so basically 2-3 people per voice part....eek! So the only thing that I am still not sold on is I did not get the opportunity to talk to each of the voice faculty to see who I would work well with as far as finding a new voice teacher. But I will wait to worry about that if I am accepted.


Grad school audition #2 - Florida State University. I flew directly from Maryland the day after my UMD audition to Tallahasse, FL. I really enjoyed my visit to FSU, but it was hard to like anything as much as I loved the University of Maryland. However, there is a voice teacher there, David Okerlund, that is absolutely amazing! Pina had recommended him to me and man is he awesome! He took the time to meet with me for an hour and half to talk about his teaching style and get to know me a bit. That speaks volumes to me about how much he cares for his students and the school. I feel that I would learn a great deal from him if FSU is where I decide to go for grad school. My audition went really well and each of the faculty made it a point to tell me how much they loved my audition. YAY!


Grad school audition #3 - Rice University. I just got back from my Rice University audition on Saturday evening. I had one rough time getting down there that is for sure! I was supposed to fly out on Thursday evening to get there a day before my audition, on Friday. My AA flight was canceled because of weather...ice n' snow...eww.... The next flight the put me on was Friday morning at 6:35am. I don't like flying in the day of because it just wears me out and takes a toll on my voice. But just rolling with the punches...I ended up rolling with more punches because I sat boarded on my flight for over 2 hours due to power outages on the plane! I now know what it looks like when the flight attendents say that the exit signs will illuminate to show you your nearest exit. Got into Houston a quarter after 11am, took one expensive cab ride to the university and got there about 12pm. My audition was at 2pm...AHHH! But despite the travel issues, I felt that I sang really well and I did well on my exams the next morning. I had been freaking myself out about those exams for months, and I will say that studying for them DEFINITELY helps!


The next and last thing on my auditions list for the moment is my audition for Opera North on February 9th. It's a summer program and it pays a bit, so that is nice :)

At this point I am taking 12 credit hours this semester....it's a load off from my usual amount of classes. I am currently in the middle of opera rehearsals for L'enfant et les sortilege. The show goes up the 1st weekend in March. After that I have a voice competition, Crescendo Music Awards, in mid March in Tulsa, OK. After that I have my BM recital on April 9th at 7:30pm in Wiedemann Recital Hall. And last but not least the Naftzger Music Competition in mid April.....it's been a busy year!!!! Whew!


In other news:
* Breanna turns 15?!?! on February 4th!!!! Ack, she's making me feel old
But I can honestly say she is one of the most increadible people I
know :) So happy birthday squirt! She's done extremely well swimming for
Winnetonka's swim team. She is just literally about a second away from
getting a state qualifying time...she's working REALLY hard to make that
time within the next week. She's already a varsity swimmer as a
freshman...so talented!
*Frank and I are still doing really well :D 6 months together as of
today. I was able to see him during my layover in Dallas on my way home
from my Rice audition. The next time I see him will probably be my
spring break in mid March :( He is currently teaching 50 voice students
in the Dallas area and singing with a professional-traveling choir too!
So he's keeping pretty busy.
*Mom joined a bookclub!!!! I'm so proud :) I think it's been a wonderful
stress reliever for her and a way to make some new friends too! She has
taken up swimming this past year or so and has been enjoying it too.
*Dad is working a lot, but it's because he's having a great deal of
success building his business back up! He's still singing with the King
of King's adult choir, which he loves.
*Al (my hamster) is still alive! He's almost 2 years old, which
considering they only live to be about 2-3 years old is quite
an accomplishment! His new obsession....banana chips!

At this point my life is busy finishing learning my recital material before the second week in March. Wah...this was a really long update, but I figured that I would just wait to post a new blog until after grad school auditions were over with. I should hopefully hear about acceptance by March 1st and scholarship offers by mid March-ish. I have to go to opera rehearsal, but as usual, I would love to hear what you all are up to, so PLEASE leave a comment or shoot me a message with all the details! Lots of love from Wichita!

Hello all...

Needless to say I've completely neglected blogging duties this past semester. Life was pretty hectic working 5 part time jobs, going to school full time, volunteering for BBBS, and working on auditions for summer apprentice programs and grad schools. But seeing as it is now 2010, I'm going to attempt to write a new blog once a week, if I have time for more than fantastic. I am also combining my other blog, my faith blog, with my sarcastic soprano blog. I decided that my faith and music are such big parts of my life that they should be together in the same blog :)

My life in a nutshell is busy....I'm studying for grad placement exams for Rice University. I have live auditions in these next 2 weeks for the University of Maryland, Florida State University, and Rice University. I'm nervous and exited for the auditions. I don't know where I will be for this summer or next year, but at this point I'm okay with that. I'm thinking, "Okay God, I've filled out all the paperwork (literally), just show me where to go." So it's scary but exciting at the same time. I'm anxious to see what happens.

Frank and I are doing well. He was able to come up and visit for about a week and a half over Christmas/New Year's, so it was really nice to have time together. Long distance just flat out stinks. But it is nice to know that we are both capable of doing long distance, especially with the career paths we've chosen. I think the next time we will get to see each other is over my spring break :(

In other news I've taken up journaling again, here's hoping that I stick with it longer than I usually do. It is very therapeutic, but I find that I get so busy with things in the semester that it just doesn't seem to happen after a while. I'm reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. My parents have been a huge fan of it for years and I decided to give it a go for my next devotional. I really like it thus far.

Anywho, I'm absolutely beat and I need to get some things done before I have to teach a lesson tonight, so I'm off. Have a good night!

Hello all!

I'm sorry it's been so long sing my last post and I've had a great deal going, so here's a quick catch up for you all. Last week I went to go study with Alan Held in Philadelphia!!! It was an amazing experience and I learned so much!!! I had two 2 and a half hour lessons with him and I can definitely say I was exhausted after each one of them, but in a good way :) We coached/ worked on my audition package and also talked about graduate school possibilities for me. All in all a fantastic experience and now have a lovely contact for some opera help, alright!

I'm currently still working on my audition package and getting ready for WSU opera auditions in a few weeks. I'm reworking my Despina material a bit and also learning the role of the story book princess from L'enfant et les Sortilege for the audition.

I really don't have a whole lot to share...I could have gone into some crazy detail about my work with Alan, but I guess the only person who would find it interesting would be me, haha. But on a random side note, I just came across this commercial the other day, I just about fell out of my chair laughing, hope you enjoy!

So I finally had my wisdom teeth out yesterday....both of the lower ones were impacted, joy and rapture. It went surprisingly well...I was in there for less than a half an hour, which was amazing! I woke up this morning with hardly any swelling and only a little pain on my lower left jaw side, but that was the hardest tooth to get out apparently, so all in all...I AM SO GRATEFUL!

Even more on the upside of things, I should have my jaw completely recovered in...get this....5DAYS!!! God is good, need I say more? So I should be able to literally get right back to practicing in about a week or a little more :)


I made the decision to have my BM recital in April instead of the initially planned October. I need to be running my entire program memorized by early September if I want to have the recital in October. I know I'm capable of putting it all together in a mere 2 months. But...I love the music I'm doing so much, and they aren't simple pieces what-so-ever, thanks to Schubert/ Respighi/ Cannon/ Jake Heggie/ Menotti and/or Floyd. If I "threw" this together in 2 months, the quality of my work would not be at it's best. I decided to dedicate more of my time to these, as we call them, white dead guys, haha. The legacy they've left in their music demands time to explore the emotion, the notes, and the musicality. I want to do them justice, so I'm giving them the time they deserve to have spent on their music. AND I'M SOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!

That's pretty much all I have, I'm off to finish my liquid breakfast of slimfast, wah wah. I've also been watching some fabulous Strauss opera productions via WSU DVDs. Can I just reiterate how much I LOVE Strauss?!?!...hope you all are doing well!

Well, I have to admit that I completely stole this link from Joyce Didonato's June 29th blog post, but I absolutely have to make sure that as many people hear this speech as possible!

Robert Levin's speech at the Curtis Institute of Music commencement:
http://instantencore.com/MusicDetails.aspx?PId=5037339

Please take the time to listen to this, fellow aspiring musicians especially!!!

I've been working on new audition arias as well as new literature for my upcoming BM recital in October. Sometimes I feel so lost as to what to do to better the piece, to make it stand out...the answer is simple, make it new! Have something to say with every note and rest! This speech was just the kick in the pants I needed to get my pieces in gear. We have to make our music relevent to society today, otherwise it dies. We have to share our love of this art and show how much it has to say. We have to make it matter! So many people do not understand the magic of Mozart, Schubert, Bach, Handel, Respighi, Josquin, Ockagham, Brittin, Offenbach, and the new composers such as Jake Heggie and Mark Adamo.

As musicians, we are translators. I'm not talking about the language of the literature. We translate the situations, plots, and poetry from these memorable composers by expressing them with the same emotions that have been shared by all mankind in past, present, and future. No the social situations, classes, and structures will not be the same, but the passions felt by all people will still remain. They are forever preserved in these great musical works. Now where do we come in as musicians? Music and performing arts are unique art forms. Our art is expressed in something that cannot be stopped...time. In visual art you can still look at the painting or sculpture years and years after it has been formed. But with the perfoming arts we are given a small amount of precious time. We can not live in the past or in the future, but only in the present. Time is fleeting and those precious moments where we are given the priviledge to share these wonderful works, we must make them meaningful to our audience. It is a challenge to us all....are you up to it?