When it all goes belly up…

I had a concert on Saturday night where I was singing brand new music and I had a technological blunder. Not my first time everything’s gone wobbly…

• I was asked to lead the sopranos in a huge come and sing day including a performance accompanied by Royal Northern Sinfonia. As a treat the conductor asked me to do the Habanera from Carmen. I learnt that song so thoroughly I could have sung it while fighting off a swarm of bees. However, after about 5 hours of singing and helping around 250 sopranos with their parts my brain gave up and I forgot the lot. Had to start again…

• I put all the pages for Una Dona Quindici’Anni in a nice clean plastic wallet folder instead of carrying scraps of A4. I put two in one pocket. This is a song with lots of repetition and I got hopelessly lost. I had to start again…

• My ipad froze at the end of page one of a terribly serious song cycle. I had to start again…

Sensing a pattern? When I teach I always remind my students that the audience are on their side, and I regularly tell them these stories. When I first stand up, and if it’s appropriate, I talk to the audience. Let them know a little about the music, why I’m singing it, etc. Make some kind of joke (never self deprecating though, you’ve got to ooze confidence). If something goes wrong I tell them exactly what has happened, apologise, and ask if they’d mind if I’d start again, with a smile. It has never failed me. Audiences ARE on your side.

Of course, I still have nightmares about that time I took a bow while standing too close to the piano, forgetting that when you bend your bum moves backwards, and it took every single bit of my core strength not to go face first into the lap of the old man in the front row. I’m not sure a little chuckle would have solved that one…

It’s Been Five Months…

Well, give or take a week!

After 17 years working in Arts Management and doing all my singing and teaching on the side, it was five months ago that I finally took the leap, and decided that singing can be a full time thing.

It’s fair to say it’s not gone how I expected. I thought I was facing the challenge of slowly building my clientele while seeking out performance opportunities, and doing lots of freelance arts admin on the side.

Instead, I almost immediately got a glorious two full days of teaching a week in Durham, a busy contract with Hexham Abbey, and the private students came pouring in. I have zero complaints, but it’s been a very quick learning curve - going from mentally organising half a dozen private regular students, to having to administrate the development and progress of almost 70.

Teaching is my absolute passion, and I’m getting to work with such an incredible range of young people, literally from ages 8 - 80, teaching everything from Bach to BTS via Bernstein.

On top of that, I’m being given such glorious singing opportunities - in the next couple of months I’m doing concerts with three different choirs, singing solos in pieces I’ve never done before - two of which I’d never even heard of before! I’m getting to plan recitals by French women, and seek out repertoire for soprano and harp, and do all the nerdy things that there was never time for before.

I’m 42, and this was a big leap, but I’m so grateful to my wonderful students and the gorgeous music teacher network in Newcastle for helping me along. And also to my friend Emily who has nagged me to blog every day since I went freelance. Who knows, maybe I’ll find the time to do more than one…