Almost total vocal inactivity and pregnancy hormones . . .

Almost total vocal inactivity and pregnancy hormones . . . apparently can do a lot of good! I went almost a year between my last vocal jury and my summer lessons before Dr. Reich left for BYU, and I haven't really had occasion to test my operatic chops since then. Well, I am going to sing "O Divine Redeemer" in church on Sunday. I prepared it for my senior recital but had to cut it because of time issues. Dr. Reich and I worked it again last summer, but then I was too pregnant to sing it in public so it had just been shelved until last week. I had a little run-through with my accompanist (Cathy Gibb who was the Opera Theater's costumer, and served with her husband in the branch for a while until recently returning to our ward). I have to say I was really nervous that I would dust the cobwebs off my instrument and find it altered and not know what to do with it. Well, I did find it altered, but mostly just in that I have more color, which is an effect that motherhood generally has. But I was very happy and relieved to find that I still had control and consistency, and yeah, with the added color, it wasn't too bad! I had another rehearsal yesterday (it is Gounod, after all), and it went really well. Cathy had something to finish up when I first arrived so I sat down and took myself through some exercises, and found that I haven't lost any range (operatically that is. My jazz whistle tones are not what they used to be, but outside of singing lead in a vocal jazz ensemble, it's pretty useless anyway), in fact I used to max out at a high C and yesterday I had a solid high D. It doesn't seem like it would make that much of a difference, but that will open up more repertoire to me. I suppose that I should have had more faith in the hard work I did and the instrument and foundations of technique the Dr. Reich and I had built.

So I am offically announcing that I will be doing a recital next summer - date TBA. If anyone has a preference, let me know! I continued to study weekly with Dr. Reich for a year after my senior recital, so I have a good amount of new repertoire. If I add a few more things, I'll definitely have enough for a good solid recital. Yay!