A Busy Month and Russian Begins

I just returned from a performance in Toronto on Saturday which, to me, was one of my most complete performances to date.  I didn't do everything technically perfectly, but I was able to get my voice to do what I wanted it to to portray the character I was playing.  I was doing a "New Opera" workshop with Tapestry Opera and met a lot of talented and was impressed with how relevant contemporary opera has made the art form.  The topics ranged from drug use to family relations through divorce and just about everything in between.  One of the wonderful things about doing contemporary opera in your native tongue is the immediacy of the music and text.  The entire audience seemed to relate literally to every scene.  This workshop gave me a new appreciation for contemporary opera and I look forward to delving into this repertoire more in the future.

Immediately following my time in Toronto, I went to Indianapolis for an audition and am now preparing to go back down to NYC for another audition.  I also have to make a video recording for another audition and am continuing to work on new repertoire for next season.  Upcoming, I will be performing at a benefit concert and also performing my annual recital at my church in Rochester.  This year's theme for my recital is Spirituals and Contemporary American Song, somewhat keeping in the theme from my time at Toronto.

After a month of debate and thinking I have decided to continue forward with my language learning, instead of cycling back around.  This past weekend I began my Russian studies.  I am starting with Michel Thomas, which is a great introduction into the language.  I also have started listening to some Russian talk radio using my TuneIn radio app on my phone when I am in areas that have wi-fi (work).  In March I plan to start using LingQ to get some more input and begin learning words and familiarizing myself with structure.

I decided to continue forward because I have started looking at Russian repertoire in my singing and I have found that I sing better when I understand the language I am singing in, even if it is at a basic level.  I do need to go back and bring my other languages up to their next respective level, but I feel that getting a basic working knowledge of Russian is more important than bringing my other languages to higher levels of fluency at this point.  I will keep you all updated as I move forward.

3 MONTH CHALLENGE!

Those of you who read other language blogs probably know about Benny and his "Three Month Challenges."  This is my first attempt at a three month challenge and it will be an intensive focus on Spanish.  Spanish is my language for this year anyway, but I have a good motivation for the next three months (OK, really 11 weeks, but it's close enough).  For the July 4th holiday, I will be spending time with my wife's best friend and family.  Her husband is from El Salvador, and they live in a city where Spanish is nearly the primary language.  I figure I will use this opportunity and present myself with a challenge to prepare me for the trip.  My plan is to upgrade my Spanish from where it is now, about B1, to C1 level in the next 11 weeks.  How will I do this?

It is going to require me to up my learning pace and take myself out of my comfort zone.  I am going to need to use Spanish as much as possible in the next three months and make my environment a Spanish language zone.  I have already begun to do this by switching my iPhone and computer over to Spanish.  The second step for me is to change my audio input from English to Spanish.  I can easily do this through my TuneIn radio app while I am at work, but I face some challenges in the car because there is no full-time Spanish radio station in my city.  I also have Spotify, so if you have any good Spanish language music to recommend, please do!  I am also going to raise my work output on LingQ to at least four pomodoros a day, which equates to about two hours of reading and listening daily.  Realistically, I only study five days a week, but by increasing the aforementioned areas of my life, I should be able to expose my self to Spanish approximately nine hours a day.  This is a good start, but I'm not done.  I also need to add more speaking to my weekly routine, so I will attempt to speak with people who I know speak Spanish more regularly and force myself to stay in Spanish even when I am struggling.  If I do all of these things, I believe I can reach my goal.

Musically, I have a busy month.  I am currently in rehearsal for two different shows that I am in.  After that I am hoping to attend a summer program which should put me on the right path to finding more work next audition season.  I have had some exciting things happening in my voice and I feel myself growing in confidence every time I perform.