Llangollen - it's easy for you to say!

I'm off to the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod again this week. Hoping to edge up the placings from my 5th spot last year. I feel a lot more prepared for what to expect that I did last year, and am looking forward to the spectacle of the thing as much as performing and competing.

One of the best things about Llangollen is that it's one of the few Eisteddfods where you don't have to sing or speak in Welsh - I've always been glad about that. However, I then decided to sing Rusalka's Song to the Moon by Dvorak, which is in Czech.

Yep. Czech.

All you can do is learn it phonetically and hope for the absolute best. I did sing the song once, only to find out that there was a Czech speaker in the audience. Fortunately she reckoned she could understand me. Maybe there's hope for me yet.....

Miaow

I have had a most mad, whirlwind month! June and July are prime singing season and that's what I've been doing, alongside the teaching and other work!

My best groupies ever, Mum and Dad, were at last weekend's gig - a fantastic outdoor concert in aid of Cancer Research UK. Dad got some photos, including this lovely shot of Penny Turnbull and I singing Rossini's Cat Duet. The cattiest of catfights.....

I think I've got a touch of the Les Dawson about me here. Not sure how I feel about this......

Lifelong learning

That's what I used to advocate as part of my day job and yet it's rare I push myself hard on the learning front these days. The most learning I tend to do is song words!
However, I got the opportunity to go on a 2-week training course for an Associate Diploma in Performing Arts teaching in April, and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

So I packed my bags and went away to Surrey (leaving my endlessly long-suffering husband with the boys on their Easter hols!). And I had the most amazing time. We had fantastic input from theatre and opera directors, dancers, singers and musical-writers. We even got to create a musical from scratch in 6 hours.

This was so much more than simply classroom management. It was about how you inspire young people to want to learn and develop their skills in the performing arts. And the focus was very much on the teacher as inspirer, performer and enabler. I left the course having found skills I didn't know I had, as well as being very clear about the things I'm not so good at (frankly, I'd already had my suspicions, but the dance class confirmed that Fonteyn or Darcy Bussell have nothing to worry about....!).

I've just been preparing the work for Stagecoach this term and, whilst it's not completely different to how I planned last term, I feel like I'm putting something coherent and worth attending together which I can defend and which will stand me in good stead for the 10 weeks in question. There's a confidence to my planning which I haven't had before.

So, all in all, a fortnight well spent, even though I was so tired I could barely speak by the end of it! I'm just waiting to hear about my exam results for this unit and then it will just be the last exam to do. It doesn't just feel like a piece of paper, however. I've learnt how to do things better and how to be more confident in getting young people enthused about using their voice. This is exciting stuff!

I've also come away feeling like a better performer as well as a better teacher, which is a welcome and unexpected by-product.

In the words of the great Hannibal Smith - "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Fame at last

Well - 10 seconds of it, anyway. I was on the 6 o'clock news on the BBC last night - for all of a few seconds, talking about losing my job at Becta and trying to sing for my supper. Fortunately there was more footage shown of me singing than speaking - I'm much better at the former than the latter. This is all part of a BBC project that's just launched, following the fortunes of public and private sector workers in Coventry over the next year. I even ended up in a panel discussion on local radio yesterday morning! And I have my own BBC News article. Think this counts as my 5 minutes of fame? This all tied in with me also getting a part-time job at Holy Trinity. I start as Parish Manager on Monday! Beginning to feel that this leap of faith I took on leaving Becta without fixed full time work to go to might just have been the right thing to do!

And...1, 2, 3, 4

The singing season of 2011 starts in earnest next weekend. I'm guesting at a concert near Dudley, with Radio 2's Nigel Ogden. Good way to start the singing year.

Next up will be Rutter's Requiem in April, which I'm looking forward to as well, and then they start to come thick and fast. This is good.

Keeping up

...or maybe not.

I'm finding out the true meaning of plate spinning at the moment. Not only have I got loads on work-wise (not least, the ceremony of the Church School Awards on 24 March, with all the busyness that brings with it), but the boys have sprouted social lives that even the most active It girl would be proud of!

In March/April, we're running at a current total of 6 birthday parties, at least one football match, band rehearsals, football clubs x 2, jazz dance and that's without trombone lessons etc. I'm now beginning to more fully appreciate what my Mum and Dad did for us when we were little!

And for my next trick....

So life at Becta is done and dusted. It had to come sooner or later. I'm actually not missing it one bit so far, which I'm taking as a very good sign that I was ready to leave.
I don't really have time to miss it, to be honest, as I'm not exactly languishing in a life of leisure. No sooner had I finished, than I found myself working as a supply woodwind and vocal teacher, a singing teacher in a Stagecoach theatre school, a private singing teacher, professional soprano and freelance comms consultant for the Church School Awards. This is all good. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I'd be doing so much so soon.
I am blessed to have an amazing and varied and interesting career opening up in front of me, friends and family who have never faltered in their support and love and the chance to start afresh.
I am happy. Busy, but happy.

Happy Christmas

The Christmas festivities are nearly over and I'm finding myself increasingly contemplating the old year nearly over and the new year nearly begun.
2010 has had some massive highs and some extremely deep lows but I feel like we're emerging stronger and with the potential for a very happy future, albeit with less disposable income!
The life of a singer, singing teacher and, here and there, freelance comms consultant beckons. It's so different from what I've done for the last 11 years that it's almost unimaginable but incredibly exciting and energising at the same time.
So thank you 2010 for adventures and family and weddings and amazing care from brilliant people near and far. You could probably have eased up on the job losses in my family - three out of three siblings made redundant in less than 6 months seems a bit harsh - but I hope your net effect will be for the best.
2011 - You are welcome and please be kind.....