SINGING & SELF
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I shall swim
I shall swim. I shall not drown. I know how to do this, and even when it gets choppy, I know how to float and conserve my energy…
Scaling the wall
Resilience. Persistence. Endurance. These are three qualities I know to be essential for longevity and productivity in the performing arts …
I’m kinda done with 1:1
Face 2 Face (retrieved from Snappa.com August 4, 2022) I hope that folks don't find this thought triggering, but I'm kind of done with 1:1 teaching. I don't mean that in a blanket kind of way--it's the way that most of us in the classical world were trained and it's...
The whole Truth,
and nothing but the Truth
Spine and Ribs (Snappa, sourced July 15, 2022) Having just returned from a stimulating (if sometimes exhausting) time of teaching and learning with young singers and experienced teaching colleagues from across the country and the US, I have been thinking often about...
Dance with the one who brung ya
…we separate ourselves from the voice we have (and thus from our selves in our most authentic, present state), and find ourselves longing for an imagined “perfect” self/voice that exists in the idealized past or the anticipated future (when we will allegedly have it all figured out)…
On Learning:
Process. Practice. Progress. Repeat.
Getting your hands dirty (Snappa, June 2022) I'm back in person at Opera Nuova this year for the first time in three years. So much feels different, and yet so much is the same as always. There are singers who are keen and wide open for learning, and others who are...
Meeting of the Blogger Minds: Braiding Sweetgrass
These three threads made me think of how everything is intersecting and interconnected. It reminded me that we are always stronger in community and shared experience…alone, a strand of sweetgrass is weak. But when bound together with others as a braid, it is unbreakable.
With a little help from my friends
The 60's revisited (Kimberly Barber, Jordan Station, ON, June 2022) As I was touring around the Niagara region last weekend, tasting wine, biking the backroads and generally enjoying life, I happened upon a plant nursery in Jordan Station that featured this 60's...
All in all
Final scene from Three Decembers as seen from backstage (Robert Butler, May 2022) Apologies in advance for the quality of the photo here...I am going to get higher res photos! But we are embracing the suck this week (to quote our friend Brené Brown) and not sweating...
Entering the cave
"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek" --Joseph Campbell Tonight is the opening night of Three Decembers at Winnipeg's Little Opera Company and this past week has been a rollercoaster of doubt, fear, excitement, triumph, beauty, ugliness (especially...
No shortcuts
One more stream to ford (Kimberly Barber, April 2021) I'm not sure why I thought it would be trouble-free to return to rehearsing live opera after a 5 year hiatus...seriously! What was I thinking?!?! The last major production I did was for Tapestry Opera in 2017. So...
Proud Mama
So…not sure if I should say it, given all the talk about boundaries in recent posts. But I can’t help myself: I am so proud of these two amazing young women that I feel like…YES! A proud mama…
A fine line 2.0
It’s a fine line we walk when we deal with the psyche and emotions of those we teach.
A fine line
Singing is vulnerable stuff. And as it turns out, teaching singing is pretty vulnerable stuff too. Teaching and learning are such deeply integrative processes that it is sometimes difficult to discern where the line between them is.
