No one even breathed...

Last week at NATS, I saw a recital by the great opera singers Christine Brewer and Stephanie Blythe, accompanied by the amazing Craig Terry. Christine Brewer is a Wagnerian soprano, Stephanie Blythe a dramatic mezzo-soprano, and combined, their voices could knock you out of your seat (I can vouch for this because I was in the 3rd row). Craig Terry is a joybomb. Everything he did, both as a collaborative pianist and as a clinician, was full of joy and support for whoever he was working with. I shared with him as he was passing me, "Mr. Terry, I just wanted to tell you that you absolutely exude joy in everything you do." He stopped and said "Thank you!" and then held his hand out and said, "I'm Craig." (Yeah, I kinda knew that.) I shook his hand and said, "I'm Christine."

But there was a moment in the second half where Stephanie Blythe sang a song from her Kate Smith tribute show that was particularly special. The song, "The White Cliffs of Dover," was written at the height of WWII. She brought that enormous voice down to a silvery thread - so controlled, so perfect - and no one... even... breathed. No one moved. (Of course, that was when my right calf began to itch like crazy - I very carefully used my right foot to scratch it, feeling like a complete Philistine.)

It's hard for a YouTube video to capture the perfection of this moment, but I found one from a few years ago, with Stephanie Blythe and Craig Terry in concert. Enjoy.

Singer's Practice Plan, Log, and Journal - A New Tool for the Studio! (One of many!)

While I was in Las Vegas last week for the NATS Conference, I got a chance to review a planner that a friend of mine, Nancy Bos, has put together. Nancy is a prolific writer and an excellent teacher, and I've been looking for something that would help me us focus on our energies more efficiently in the studio. So I bought myself a copy to review it. If I thought it'd be valuable, I'd ask my students to buy it.

And then I went to the national meeting on the last morning of the conference and entered a raffle. Would I win CDs? A t-shirt? Would I win a new iPad? Would I win free registration to the 2020 conference in Knoxville? (That's what i was hoping for!)

I won 5 copies of the practice planner. In red. And I'm thrilled with the planner I bought (in blue), so I'm giving them out to people. You can do with it what you wish. There's a section on writing down when and how long you practiced, a section on setting goals, a place to take notes, staff paper to write out exercises (or have me write them in your book), a place to keep track of your repertoire (both things we're working on and dream pieces), and a journal section that you can fill out as you'd like. I've given out 2 copies so far, and I'm planning to give out the rest this week.

If you're interested in the book and you didn't get a copy (for example, you didn't have a lesson last week and aren't having one this week), then you can purchase a copy on Amazon. More info is here. If enough people are interested, I can contact Nancy and buy in bulk (10 copies or more).

I am using the book for my own goal setting, journaling, and record-keeping.

I also purchased iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to take notes at the conference and have started keeping lesson records on it, which is life-changing. Plus I'm moving a lot of my sheet music to it, and that is also life-changing.

Other things that I came across at the workshop and recommend:

Appcompanist: This is MINDBLOWING. We'll be using it in the studio, but if you want to use it at home, you'll have to get your own. IOS only for now. Android coming later. Free download and demo. Not cheap but incredible.

Voxercise: Free download (both IOS and Android) will give you 3 free vocalises (glides on a hum, on a vowel, and on a trill) and 3 breathing exercises. Additional exercises are $4.99 for a pack or $13.99 for all 5 packs. I just accidentally bought one pack while I was writing this (oops). They're pretty basic. But if you need to warm up somewhere, they'll do the trick. It also tells you if you're sharp or flat!

Things I hope to accomplish this summer:

1. Updating my own vocalises to be given out (this was last summer's goal, but I ran into a glitch with the software)
2. Possibly putting vocalises onto a YouTube channel that would be available to my own students
3. Actually creating official studio policies. I had very specific policies when I had my Milwaukee studio. I haven't done the same thing here yet because I haven't has any many students, my needs are different (I'm performing more, so I need to adapt some things to allow for that), and my client base is somewhat different. In Milwaukee, all my students were ages 11-18, with the occasional college kid coming back in the summer for a touch-up. Now, I range from 11-70, and I have to take some things into account. But I definitely need to set some policies in place - I can't expect people to read my mind. I'm pretty reasonable, though.

It's going to be a great summer!

Cabaret as Personal Musical Theater

I was looking through my past blogs to see if I've defined cabaret before and couldn't find anything.

This past Friday, I was thrilled to reunite with Ryan Cappleman to perform a revised version of my first cabaret, "Oh! To Be a Movie Star!" at Germano's in Little Italy (the revision includes the addition of the exclamation point after "Oh!" where there had previously been a comma). We had a terrific turnout, unlike the performances that Ryan and I did back in Milwaukee, and it was extremely well-received. It's nearly a week later and I'm still re-living moments that I felt went particularly well and not moments that went badly (this never happens).

There was one friend who had planned to come but didn't because he said he had a hard time getting his fiancée to go to concerts on Friday night, which is their date night. I was surprised that he said that, because he's a musician and actor as well. He thought that the performance was going to be something along the lines of a recital, rather than - well, what it was.

So I've done some more musings on exactly what cabaret is. And the title of this article is from something that was said to me by Amanda McBroom at a cabaret workshop I attended in Brookfield, Wisconsin, when she was asked to define cabaret. She thought a bit and said, "Cabaret is personal musical theater." It's taking pieces that mean something to you and developing a narrative from those pieces. It might be that you have a theme in mind, or it might be that a theme comes from the pieces you've selected.

In the case of this week's show, my theme was movies and movie stars, and the songs I chose reflected that. And more important, what movies have meant in my own life.

Another definition that I came up with was that creating a cabaret was like writing a script for a jukebox musical. A jukebox musical is a bunch of songs by one artist or composer around which an often-lame script is written. Now, I generally hate that genre. My own personal idea of hell would be sitting through endless productions of Rock of Ages, Jersey Boys, and Pump Boys and Dinettes. But a cabaret is picking songs - perhaps by the same composer, perhaps based on a theme or an era - and putting them together with a narrative of some kind.

However, in a musical, there's a full cast of characters. In cabaret, all the characters are played by a single performer (or a small group of performers) who might have some specific lines that she wants to say to introduce a song, but the songs are the script. They are what tell the story, through the singer's interpretation.

In Oh! To Be a Movie Star!, Ryan and I told stories of wanna-be actors, both from a humorous and a tragic perspective, of fans who admire and obsess over the object of their affection, of up-and-coming stars and those fading into obscurity. It wasn't a single narrative following one person from beginning to end. That's a different kind of show. And maybe it's one I'll do someday.

All I can say right now is that cabaret continues to be one of the most rewarding and creative outlets I have as an artist these days. It's not the only outlet, which it was in Milwaukee (and why not having an audience was so demoralizing to me), but it's the one that makes me feel the most like myself. It's personal. It's musical. And it's theater.

What I hope 2018 holds for me

I hope that 2018 is filled with good performances, good students, travel, learning, writing, playing, and open-heartedness among us all.

Things I have coming up (besides my regular Thursday/Sunday job at CMOQ):

1/5-6: Do It Now! The William Donald Schaefer Musical. Yes, there's a new musical about Willie Don, Baltimore's former mayor and Maryland's former governor. I'm in a reading of it at Stevenson University-Greenspring Valley (another new performance venue!), playing Bertha, a neighbor of Willie Don who escapes to the suburbs of Milford Mill after the riots, and Jean, an aide in his mayoral office. Friday is an open dress rehearsal, Saturday is the official performance. Donations accepted.

1/20: Audition for Washington National Opera's 2018-2019 season. Still trying to decide what to sing.

1/22: Rehearsals start for Don Carlo at Washington National Opera.

1/24: Start teaching at Notre Dame University of Maryland. Down the street from my house.

1/29: Spring semester starts at Howard Community College.

3/3: Don Carlo opens, closing 3/14.

3/26: Holy Week begins! NDM spring break begins.

4/1: Easter Sunday. Jesus is Risen! April Fools! (No, it's April Fools' Day. I wasn't being sacrilegious.)

4/2: HCC spring break starts. NDM's spring break ends. Figures.

4/13: Oh to be a movie star! at Germano's with Ryan Cappleman.

4/14: Workshop on auditioning for community theater with Ryan and Lance Bankerd. Location still TBD.

4/25: Rehearsals begin for Concert Artists of Baltimore final concert of the season.

5/12: CAB Concert at Gordon Center of the Performing Arts (a new venue for me).

6/22-26: NATS National Conference, Las Vegas, NV (baby).

And that's it for right now. I'm hoping to do the High Holidays at Oheb Shalom, but I won't get a contract till June.

I have a lot to do. I think the most important things to focus on right now are getting the cabaret show and the workshop pre-planned, because once school and WNO rehearsals begin, I'm going to be busy.

Happy New Year!

A 2017 Retrospective

A lot of things happened in 2017. One of my friends did a chart with colored markers but I'm much more into typed lists than I am graphic design, so here's part of it:

• Directing Little Women at Third Wall Productions (directing debut and role debut as Marmee)
• In addition to doing a reprise of LoveSICK with Dyana Neal, Steven Lampredi and Jim Knost, I returned as a solo cabaret artist in two places doing The Not Here Cabaret with Michael Tan at Spotlighters Theatre and at Germano's.
• Performing in new venues:
• St. Leo's in Little Italy (Cantor)
• Friends' School (CAB)
• Third Wall Productions (See above)
• Germano's (See above)
• Shetler Studios in NYC (Hitchy-Koo 2017)
• The Belvedere (HOB Prohibition Gala - although no one heard us, because it was really loud, but that's okay)
• The lobby at the Lyric (with Lyric Holiday Carolers, a new group that I formed which may reappear next year)
• I'm working with a composer, Garth Baxter, who has agreed to set several Irish poems to music! This is a project that was supposed to happen in Milwaukee, but that composer didn't seem all that interested. (Basically, a reflection of how I was regarded in Milwaukee...)
• After a hiatus of 21 years, I received a contract for Don Carlo with Washington National Opera - my costume fitting was a couple of days ago.
• I joined the board of House of Bankerd!
• I did my first podcast for HOB's State of the Arts podcast.
• Joined the faculty at Notre Dame University of Maryland (down the street from my house!)
• I was cast in a reading of a new musical that will be performed next weekend, Do It Now! The Mayor Schaefer Musical, and got to know a whole bunch of new people and reconnected with some I sang with YEARS ago.
• I returned to blogging and was quite active this summer, but fell out of it when school started up in the fall.
• I started meditating and was doing it daily all summer, but fell out of it when school started up in the fall.
• I expanded my gym membership to take advantage of more Zumba classes, and was doing it 3-4x/week, as well as other classes, until I had an injury on Labor Day and had to put it on hiatus (are we noticing a pattern here?) for awhile. 
• We hosted 3 parties at our house, the cast party for Little Women, Thanksgiving dinner, and a Boxing/Bill Day Party, all of which were successful. (You know it's a good party when there's very little food left over.)
• A housekeeper! Well, actually two, since I fired the first one.
• My husband returned to the jazz stage (is it really a stage?) with the reunion of his old band (and I mean OLD - they hadn't performed together for 30 years), First Impressions. (The name of that band sounds like they should all be wearing powder blue tuxedos.) I'm hoping that he'll be doing more of this and that maybe, just maybe, he and I and maybe David Bell could do some cool 1930s cabaret show.... :D
• I quit Oldfields School.
• I continue to be an alto section leader and cantor at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and in the professional choir at Temple Oheb Shalom. 
• I'm still in Concert Artists of Baltimore, with whom I did 4 concerts this year: St. Matthew Passion (4/1), Gershwin (10/8), Messiah (12/8-9), and Catholic Charities (12/14). 
• I auditioned for a straight play and thought I did a really good job. Wasn't cast, but I enjoyed the process.
• Saw a couple of shows - but not nearly as many as I should've. High point - Ragtime at Ford's Theatre in DC. Also Audra MacDonald at the Strathmore.
• We went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival five times. 
• I got together with friends in Milwaukee at the Journeyman Hotel's rooftop bar when I was there. Not as many as I would've liked. A lot of people simply didn't bother to respond to my invite....
• We remodeled our backyard so that we have a great place to throw more parties!! Next year: Renaissance Party 2018!!

The year didn't have too many downsides, personally. Donald Trump is still president, and I have hated him for 30 years just because of who he is. His presidency and "policies" are just icing on the cake. 

My husband had a close call, work-wise. It seems to have resolved itself, but it came at a very rough time and we did not know what the future was going to be. As it stands now, he wound up, through his own perseverance, with a promotion and more (and welcome) responsibilities.

The hardest thing, of course, was the diagnosis of my beloved Pippin with cancer, resulting in the amputation of his left hind leg. We don't know what his outcome will be. He's doing really, really well and we're meeting with the oncologist in a week to explore chemo and other treatment possibilities. 

Tomorrow I want to explore the things that will (or might) happen in 2018. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this year went for my family and for me, professionally and personally.

Happy New Year!

"A creative adult is the child who survived."

Two blogs in one day!

Last night I did a cabaret show at Germano's Piattini in Little Italy - "The Not Here Cabaret" with Michael Tan. This was a reprise of a show we did at Spotlighters in June. It went, very, very well. I felt so at home in the format, with the audience, and with the music I'd selected.

This morning I saw this posted on Facebook:

89-Year-Old Japanese Grandma Discovers Photography, Can’t Stop Taking Hilarious Self-Portraits Now - Japan Inside

One of the comments I read (and I know, you're not supposed to read the comments) was: "A creative adult is the child who survived."

That's how I feel about doing cabaret. Creative. Fulfilled. Happy.

Oh, and I made a tidy little sum doing it last night, which was even better. #MakingMoneyAsASingerFTW (do hashtags work in blogs)?

Why a Bachelor's Degree?

A former student asked me to write a letter for a friend who was being threatened with deportation (!!) while doing a degree program in music. This person wants to be a voice teacher, and apparently TIIC don't understand why that career choice requires any kind of formal training. (Slowly I turn...) So I wrote this today:

To whom it may concern:
I was asked to write this letter to explain why teaching voice is something that would require a Bachelor’s Degree in Music. I cannot imagine how anyone would think it would not require extensive training at the collegiate level and beyond. Teaching voice is not just sitting at the piano and playing happy little ditties or simple scales. It involves an understanding of many facets of music and other disciplines. I would like to outline these requirements as I see them, as a graduate of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, as a private and college voice teacher/sole proprietor with nearly 20 years’ experience, and as a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).

• The voice teacher needs to understand the physiology of the voice - the laryngeal muscles, the muscles of breath management, and the musculoskeletal structure that allows a singer to develop his/her instrument to full effect. This study is offered in vocal pedagogy courses in both undergraduate and graduate programs.

• The voice teacher needs to understand music theory in order to convey to the student that the vocal line is only a part of the whole fabric of the piece. Knowing theory allows the teacher to show the student how each note, each phrase, each line fits into the entire piece. This study is offered in every year of the bachelor’s program.

• The voice teacher needs to understand history - both music history and world history - in order to teach the student how to interpret a piece of music in a way that is historically informed and appropriate. The style of a piece from the 17th century is radically different from that of the 19th century. And many times, styles recur in later periods (i.e., everything old is new again). A good teacher will be able to point this out to a student and help guide that student to an understanding that is deeper than just singing a song for the song’s sake. Again, music history is offered throughout a 4-year undergraduate program, as well as the gen ed courses in history available in most colleges.

• And finally, the voice teacher cannot exist in a vacuum. Music programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels allow (and usually require) people to work together in various ensembles, on stage, in concert, in chamber works, and in large choral groups. These experiences are invaluable in teaching the voice teacher about teamwork, in providing networking opportunities that go well beyond their college years, and giving them a foundation to draw upon when working with students.

Based on my experience, all of these skills require, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree in music. Should you have any further questions, please feel free to email me at mezzoid@gmail.com or call the number below.

Sincerely yours,

Christine Thomas-O’Meally, M.M.