Alice’s Adventures in an Arts Career

I have just started my first grad school application.  Boy, this feels surreal.  I know I’ve talked about doing grad school for nearly three years now.  But, now that I’m actually starting the process, it feels so daunting and it suddenly makes the idea more real than ever.

I still can’t believe I’m actually doing it.  There is so much to do in such a short period of time.  Once again, I have to pull together the sum of my musical and academic experiences and convince people that I am the best candidate for the job. And yet again, the little voices of self-doubt remind me that there must be thousands of others out there who do what I do, only better.  I look at my grades; they are good, but they could be better.  I look at my conducting technique: it’s good, but it could be better.  When they ask what my career aspirations are, what feats of glory do I hope to achieve that would make me worth their investment, I flounder and the only words on my lips are “I want to be a conductor.”

Sigh.  This is exactly how ungrad applications felt over four years go, only much, much worse. But, I’ll keep at them.  In reality, what is the worst that can happen?  They could say no and then I would be in the exact position I am in today, and I’m pretty happy today.  So, I’ll breathe deep, take the plunge and hope for the best.

I still detest applications.

Well, it’s all over and done.  I finally have a shiny piece of paper that declares me a graduate of The University of Western Ontario with a Bachelor of Music: Honors Education degree.  I feel good.  I feel accomplished.

I started graduate school research today.  I am now offically scared and have a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time.  Time to buckle down and write application after application.

My university convocation ceremony is in roughly fifteen hours.  In fifteen hours I will walk across a stage and leave the other side an official university graduate with a bachelor degree in music and a minor in English.  While the meaning behind the ceremony is tremendous, the event itself is less exciting.  I will literally walk across a stage, kneel before a chancellor I have never met before, nor will he/she know me or a single thing about my four year process, I will be robed, be “admitted” and walk off the other side where I will pick up my degree.  The whole process I’m sure will take less than 3 minutes.

However, the four years that those three minutes commemorate are far more significant.  My undergraduate career took several twists and turns and I’ve come out the other side not exactly in the place I initially expected.  I went into first year so confident in my direction and I’ve left with more possibilities than I ever considered before.

Upon receiving my acceptance into Western, I was sure the music performance degree was the path I was going to take.  I was going to perform and become a great singer.  I was singularly focused in my goal with little thought to other potential avenues.  Composing, choir, conducting, acting, teaching…these were all things I just enjoyed doing, but were never supposed to become anything more than hobbies.  I am now leaving my undergrad with two choral publications to my name, a chamber choir and multiple community and school theatre credits including set design, music direction and acting.  My path has been redirected toward conducting but now it is longer so narrowly defined.  I perhaps feel both more lost and more assured about where I am going to go from here.

I am receiving my degree with an absolute sense that I can and will continue to make music, art and performance a primary element in my life.  I am more comforted than ever that I truly can make this whole “art thing” work.  However, more than ever, I feel I have more options open to me than ever before and it is unquestionably daunting.

If not for the ceremony, I am looking forward to receiving my degree and celebrating with family and friends.  The best part of course, beside the dinner and wine with said family and friends, is that for the next three days after graduation I have non stop rehearsals for the multiple musical endeavors that are currently occupying my life and making me so happy. I am literally leaving school and jumping right back into the things I love doing.  All in all, it’s a pretty good time to be me.

I can hardly believe this.  I feel like lightning has just struck a second time.  I am being published again. I just got word from Lighthouse Music Publications that they want to publish “Sweet Child”.

The piece is SSA with piano and there is a story behind it.  I started work on “Sweet Child” at the beginning of 3rd year I believe, though it may have been as far back as 2nd year.  At the time, I had written several little pieces that I never did much with.  I had written piano works, and small ensemble works, but I had never written a piece with lyrics; mostly because I was convinced I couldn’t do it. So, one day I literally sat myself down at the piano and told myself I was going to write something with lyrics and that it was going to be a choral piece.  I decided I would start with something simple, so I chose to write a lullaby.

That’s how “Sweet Child” began.  I had nearly the entire piece roughly sketched within two weeks… but then I left it, as I did with pretty much everything else I’d ever written, mostly because composing was just something I did for fun.  I never considered myself a composer, I considered myself a “noodler” .

After my unexpected success with “If Thou Wilt, Remember”, I decided it was worth my while to go back and work on some of my old compositions.  I pulled out my lullaby and polished it up (this makes it sound like it was a breeze; it was a nightmare but that’s a post for another day).  I submitted it back in September with my fingers crossed and I am over the moon with the result.

I suspect the piece won’t be published until the beginning of next year, but you can be sure you’ll hear about it when it is.