Alice’s Adventures in an Arts Career

I just received an offer of admissions from the School of Music at Memorial University for their graduate program in choral conducting.  I’m not sure I really have the right words to describe how I feel right now.  All I can say is that I legitimately cried when I read the letter.  I feel so happy and relieved and validated and excited and scared and proud and shocked and a whole bunch of other emotions that I’m still trying to sifted apart.  But above all else I am happy.

Truth be told, this whole application and audition process which started last October and took me to both ends of the country has been a nightmare.  I truly would never wish the amount of stress, anxiety, fear and self doubt that I experienced on anyone and I never want to have to do this again (though something tells me I will one way or another).

But it’s all over for now and after months of rejection and failure I finally have what I set out to get.  I am so proud and astonished with myself that I actually went and achieved something that I’ve been talking about for several years now.  I realize the work has only just begun.  I haven’t even started school and this process will not truly be complete until I finish the maters degree.  But this is the first big step and it was the goal of the entire past year. It makes me feel so good to know that I accomplished it.

I’m right now in the warm fuzzy stage were I can bask in the glow of this wonderful achievement.  I don’t yet have to start worrying about how I’m going to move out to St. John’s or where I’m going to live or any of those details.  I am just going to enjoy this feeling for a little while before those inevitable stresses and anxieties take over.

This is what I wanted. Memorial is where I want to be and now I get to do it. I am so happy.

What a concert. Vox Humana’s performance yesterday was more than I could have ever asked for.  I was so happy with they were able to produce.  I was on such a blissful choral high all afternoon.  It still amazes me how, despite the myriad troubles and anxieties leading up to any performance things always seem to come together in the end.  And that’s exactly what happened yesterday.

It seems this choir is forever to be pressed for rehearsal time.  What with sickness, school work, conferences and family obligations, it’s a marvel that we can meet even once a week, and even then our rehearsal numbers often don’t reflect the full membership numbers.  The last two weeks before the concert were mayhem.  I was in and out of London doing my grad school audition, then we had the Easter weekend on top of a slew of illnesses and graduate conferences.  All this left us scrambling to reschedule extra rehearsals.  Our final rehearsal was the day before the concert and even after that two hour session there were ragged ends in our program.

But on Sunday afternoon, we all dressed up in bright colours, put on our nice shoes  and showed up early at the beautiful Windermere on the Mount Chapel.  With refreshed voices and the potent mix of preshow excitement and anxiety we threw everything we had into our dress rehearsal.

I wasn’t exactly worried.  I had my game plan ready.  I knew exactly what I wanted to fix and how I was going to fix it.  However, it wasn’t until they sang “Rauha” and I heard what they made of the piece that I knew we would be okay and were ready to give a performance.  And it was a stunning performance.  It was the best I’ve ever heard them sing and I felt so proud.

We performed “If Thou Wilt, Remember” with Josh on the alto saxophone as our closer.  It was the highlight of the concert.  It felt so good to be conducting that piece and to feel it in my hands.  Nearly a year ago I was submitting it for publication and now here I was conducting it with my own choir.  It felt good.

And now I have some serious post show blues.  Choir is over for the summer and I feel as if I have nothing left to do.  This of course is not really true since I’m always finding myself something new to contribute my talents to.  However, it is possible I will never conduct Vox again.  I may be in another city in the fall and while studying at Memorial is the dream I do desperately want to come true, leaving Vox will be difficult.

I was nervous taking over Vox.  I was not sure I would be able to fill Tim’s shoes.  I wasn’t sure I knew how to keep the group together, or that I would know how to run rehearsals or organize concerts or all the endless little details and jobs that being director required of me.  And it has been trying.  Every now and then the anxiety that I wasn’t doing it right would overwhelm me and I was sure it would all fall apart.  But it didn’t, and we got through and I am so relieved and proud and happy and exhausted.  And I want to it again.

It was a wonderful concert and I’m so proud of what we did.  I’m so happy for the choir and I hope they enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

This Sunday is The Vox Humana Chamber Choir Concert.  It’s been a long road preparing for this event, but things are really coming together now and I’m looking forward to the performance.

Most notably, we will be performing my published work “If Thou Wilt, Remember”.  This won’t be the world premier of the piece since the Toronto Waldorf School high school choir sang it back in February.  However, this will be the London (Ontario) Premiere and it will be the first time I will have conducted it in performance.  We had our first rehearsal with the instrumental solo this evening.  The part will be played by Josh Morrison on the alto sax.  Josh was the one whole initially helped me way back when I was first writing the piece by giving me advice about wind instrument writing.  He was instrumental (pun intended) in the eventually end product of a good, playable and satisfying instrumental part.  I originally wrote it for soprano sax but later switch it to oboe…a decision that Josh is still trying to convince me was a mistake and is on something of a campaign to win me over to the alto sax.  I won’t lie, this evening he made a very good case.

Anyway, there will be plenty of other great piece on the program including Healey Willan’s “Rise up my Love”, several saucy madrigals, some Elgar and some Palestrina.  It should be a wonderful afternoon.

Date: Sunday, April 11th

Time: 3 pm

Location: Windermere on the Mount Chapel, 1486 Richmond Street

Tickets: Adult- $10, Student/Senior- $8.

If you have the time come on out and support us.  It will be a delightful afternoon concert.

I’ll be auditioning for UofT tomorrow.  I’m am extremely nervous and anxious and scared and worried.  I want it to go well so badly.  I wish I could feel excited and happy since I’m going to be conducting and I love to conduct, but I’m more nervous than anything.  I’ll be conducting the MacMillan Singers.  The standards are very high and I’m hoping I can perform up to their expectations, or at least not make a fool of myself.  I want to feel good about this but I am just scared and feeling a lot of pressure to do well especially since I’ve already received a rejection from Alberta and haven’t heard anything from either Western or Memorial.  As of right now, this is the last bit of control I have in this process unless I get an audition invitation from Memorial. So, I’m feeling a little bit like my graduate school hopes are resting on tomorrow.

I know this is a terrible feeling to go into an audition with.  I should feel completely confident and go in like I’m going to rock it.  I wish I could feel like that now, but I don’t so I’ll have to fake the confidence tomorrow I guess.  It’s not like I haven’t done that before.

I’ll be conducting the  ‘Credo’ from the Bach B Minor Mass and Movement 1 of  ‘Suite de Lorca’ by Rautavaara.

Anyway, wish me luck.  Hopefully everything will go swimmingly.

It’s the waiting that is killing me.  Of all the things in this whole graduate school application and audition process it is the waiting that upsets and frustrates me the most.  Waiting to hear your fate as your vision of your entire future hangs in the balance.

I’m waiting to hear back from Memorial University about whether or not I will be invited for an audition in March.  I’m nearly going bonkers waiting.  I should be hearing the results any day now and the longer it takes the more anxious and nervous I get.  This isn’t even the acceptance stage, this is only to see whether I make it to live auditions or not.  Even if I’m invited I still have to fly out there and perform and I could still flunk it just like Alberta.  But of course the first bridge to cross it getting to that audition and so I’m waiting.

I really want to audition for Memorial.  The more I learn about the program and the more I listen to people talk about the school and how wonderful St. John’s is and how wonderful the student environment is and how wonderful the music culture is in Newfoundland the more I want to go. But I can’t go yet because I’m waiting.

I really worry that I won’t get an invitation.  If I don’t that effectively reduces my chances of getting into grad school this year down to two schools: Western and U of T.  I don’t like those odds.  Oh, that reminds me, I’m also waiting to hear from Western on the fate of that application.

I keep telling myself I got an audition invitation from UofT based on the DVD I sent in and I sent in the same DVD to Memorial, so there shouldn’t really be any reason that I get an invitation from UofT but not Memorial.  If I was good enough for UofT I should be good enough for Memorial, right?! UofT is supposed to be the really hard school with extremely high standards; their audition process asks for much more than any other school. But then I think maybe Memorial doesn’t care about UofT standards and they just won’t give me an audition regardless of what UofT thinks of my DVD.

You see what happens in all this waiting! I have no control, I have to idea what’s going to happen and all I have is time to spend waiting and worrying myself sick with all the “what if’s” that I can’t possibly answer until I get a letter in my mail box. GAAAAHH!  It’s driving me nuts!  I just want to go to grad school.  That’s all I want.  Is that really so much to ask?  I would also just like someone to let me know where I stand and what is happening with my applications.  Someone, please just tell me.

Even if it’s bad news, I’ll be terribly upset and sad and I’ll mope around for a good long while, but at least I’ll know and I can stop this incessant worrying.  Granted, I’ll start worrying about something else, namely another year of being out of school and living a directionless life.

God, I hate grad applications.

The first ever performance of “If Thou Wilt, Remember” happened last Thursday night at the Toronto Waldorf School.  It was a stunning performance.  I’m so happy to have been there.

I can’t even describe the feeling I had when I heard those first two bars of piano intro.  I began to tear up in that moment it was so overwhelming and wonderful.  I was hearing my piece for the first time.  That was the first time I’d head that opening played in a formal performance by someone other than myself.  The choir sang with such sensitivity and attention to the text.  I felt they really had put thought into the meaning of the words and had contemplated the depth of the poem.  I am so honoured that they performed my piece and even more honoured that they enjoyed it so much.  After the performance I was nearly instantaneously surrounded by members of the choir wanting to talk to me about the piece.  I was gratified and rather surprised.  I had not expected such an out pouring of positive feedback.

I can not wait for the next performance of the work which I think will be when Vox Humana performs it in April.  It will be a different experience I’m sure working and rehearsing the piece myself rather than simply listening to a performance by another group.  I’m also even more excited about the up coming release of my newest work “Sweet Child” and am wondering who will be the first to perform that one.  It’s all very exciting and gratifying stuff.

My old high school has written me up in their online newsletter.  A few weeks ago I was contacted by one of the grade eleven students with a series of questions on the topic of “If Thou Wilt, Remember” and my general experiences as a university music student and composer.  My answers have been compiled into a nice composer biography and interview.  You can check it out here.

I can’t wait to go hear the performance.  I’ve been looking forward to it for nearly a month now.  I even went shopping and picked out an outfit for the evening.  I’m going to go looking like I’m just effortlessly fabulous and have my life all pulled together- even if I really don’t.

I really need to enjoy all these good feelings of accomplishment and competence this week because next week is my University of Toronto audition and I’m even more terrified of it than I was for my U of Alberta audition.

This is so totally exciting!  “If Thou Wilt, Remember” is being premiered in two weeks by my old high school choir.  The Toronto Waldorf School will be holding their annual arts evening and the chamber choir will be singing my piece.  I’m going to Toronto to hear it.

They’ve been working on it for a little while now and I’ve been getting some really great feedback.  Word is everyone really likes the piece.  I even heard that there have been tears in rehearsal.  I can’t even say how flattered all this makes me feel and so completely validated.  It’s one thing to have your publisher and your family say your work is good, it’s another to have people who aren’t closely connected to you in the “real world” say it’s good.  I wrote the piece to be enjoyed by choirs and I thought a lot about the experience of the chorister.  I wrote with them in mind at all times, tailoring my piece to suite what I thought would be most satisfying to perform.   It’s so gratifying to hear that that work has paid off.

I was asked to do an interview for the school newsletter as a promotional piece before the event which I was more than happy to do.  One of the grade 11 students in the choir sent me a list of extremely insightful and thoughtful questions relating to the piece, my musical background and my approach to composition.  I will undoubtedly post links when they send it out.

In related news, I’ve started rehearsal of the same piece with Vox Humana and it’s going very well.  It’s so much fun to actually get to hear the piece.  It brings a whole to perspective to a work that I supposedly know inside and out.  I keep finding things in the piece I never knew where there.

I can’t wait for Waldorf to perform it.  I want to hear a performance of my piece that I am completely uninvolved with and hear what they might bring out that I might not have ever thought of.  It will be interesting to compare the two experiences between hearing a performance that I am not involved with and conducting a performance later that I am intimately involved with from start to finish.

Anyway, the Waldorf premier of “If Thou Wilt, Remember” will be on February 18th!

It strikes me that I haven’t posted any photos, videos or anything for that matter since the curtain went down on The Gondoliers. Well, here is a little taste of what the show was like.  This is the finale.  It encapsulates pretty the mood and look of the entire show and is indicative of the silly, wild fun we had each and every night.  When I watch this I still smile wide and it’s all I can do to stop myself from dancing and singing along.  It really was that much fun and I miss it terribly.

By the way, the video is mislabeled…it was not a 60’s setting but rather a 50’s setting, but I’m pretty sure that is clear from the costumes, set and reference to 50’s swing/twist, Grease and The King.

I have my first Masters in conducting audition on Saturday.  I’m flying out to Edmonton Alberta on Friday, will spend all day Saturday writing exams, doing interviews and conducting auditions at the University of Alberta.  I’ll then hop back on the plane Sunday bright and early and head back to London so I can go to work Monday morning.  It’s going to be exhausting and I’m so nervous.  I have so much still to prepare.  I’ve never been to Edmonton, nor have I flown alone before.  It’s going to be three days of new experiences with the potential for disaster at every corner (I could lose my baggage, miss my plane, get lost downtown, get lost on campus, flunk my audition) But I’m looking forward to it.

I’ll be conducting two pieces: “Stimmt an die Saiten” from Haydn’s Creation Mass and “O Magnum Mysterium” by Thomas Luis de Victoria.  The former is the required selection and the latter I choose from a list of choral audition selections.  I chose the Victoria mostly because I had easy access to the score (God bless CPDL) and I’ve conducted it before so it would be slightly less work to prepare.  Thankfully Alberta provided the Haydn score, though I’m sure I could have found a good edition of it on CPDL.

I’ve also been invited to an audition at The University of Toronto at the end of February.  My Memorial Audition will be in mid March and I was contacted by UWO about booking an audition with them sometime in February.  It’s exciting.  I sometimes still marvel that I’m actually doing this.  I’ve talked about applying to a masters program in conducting for a couple years now, but it feels so strange to actually be doing it now.  But I’m looking forward to it.

I’m hoping for good luck, a smooth trip and a good performance this weekend.