Been a while

Hi hi...I know its been a while but have been busy preparing for the Eugene Onegin auditions (auditioning for Filipyena) and generally getting my masters research settled. The auditions went well and am now waiting for the results. Trying not to get my hopes up as the competition is fierce. We have a glut of excellent mezzos this year esp as some stayed another year especially for this opera. The power of Tchaikovsky.
Am having a Christmas concert in KL:) Its a fund raising concert for the Methodist church my gran attends. A full hour with a couple of duets with a Malaysian soprano I met. should be good but have been busy organising the pianist and other logistics from half a world away. Also getting music together to send to him. Quite exciting few months. Wish I had a few gigs here but....gotta keep pushing.

Bits and Bobs of news

The flu bugs going around so lots of folk are sick. Been cramming in the vitamin c. We start vixen rehearsals next week. I had not auditioned as I was planning to concentrate with Barbara but...a colleague left for RSAMD and her cover took over her part as Mrs Pasek and I got roped in to be her cover:) Hmmm 20 SPS points for 4 lines....not too bad. Got to learn them now:) Also have the Onegin(Spring Opera) auditions coming up. So the stress is on.
Had a friend from singapore visiting this week. Hes a bass and is working with Opus one ( a small traveling opera company) in Tosca,Il Travatore and Boheme. Was lovely to see folk from home.We went out for a nice chinese makan.
Also after my pc crashed last week I lost the files to my last website and splurged to get it redesigned by a singaporean web design firm. The draft looks cool...hopefully it will be ready by the end of the week.

On the up

Computer crashed last week and went to hospital. Apparently the stupid Norman software I was so faithfully paying for was not an antivirus at all and some horrible virus took over my pc. Luckily the IT guys at the RNCM saved the day and reinstalled everything from scratch.

Its been a good few weeks. Singing with Barbara is going well and shes very pleased with me. Am using muscles I never knew I had and boy are they aching from being stretched beyond their comfort zone. People have been telling me to sing into my back for years and I'm now only finding out whats its about. What a diff to the level of support and clarity of voice. I'm finally feeling like I have control and hence options now in my singing.

Have talked to the powers that be and have been promised better funding next year. Looks like I will be staying a third year at the RNCM. Will be good to have the extra time with Barbara to solidify and stabilize. Only down side is that the only course now offered to me is the MPhil which is the start of the Phd course. Really not keen to do another masters after this year.Esp a bigger dissertation. Bah! Well hopefully something will turn up. The long and short of it is that I should have stretched my PGDip to two year instead of rushing it last year and just passing. Well the masters recital in May will be much better. Am already preparing rep. Also need to think of another dissertation title. It has to be linked to my MPhil recital. Maybe something on the effect of Indian poetry on western music? Then I can do a whole recital on Indian inspired music.