IT'S GRAMMY WEEK

See below for a Photo Plot of "How the Camel Got Its Hump"

I am ultimately excited for this week for a couple of reasons - I will be attending the Grammy's and hoping the Chorale can take back some hardware, but mainly for the chance at an actual vacation!  I have had to travel quite often in the past, but it is always stressful and "business" related.  This time, I will be able to enjoy life!  Thank you to everyone who have helped us out so we can attend and dress like belong; we are so thankful for you!

I will be providing a lot of updates (hopefully) via facebook mostly through pictures.  If you are interested in following, my profile is facebook.com/pinkall

Of the several events planned for the weekend, I will be attending a rooftop cocktail at sunset in downtown LA on Saturday with a record company.  Then on Sunday, I will attend the GRAMMY Pre-telecast Awards Ceremony and Reception, the Red Carpet, the Primetime GRAMMY Awards Ceremony, and Wolfgang Puck's GRAMMY Celebration Afterparty.  You can follow all of these events live at http://www.grammy.com/live this Sunday starting at Noon O'clock Pacific Time.

---

As for other news this week, our neighbors had a kitchen fire, burning-up their microwave oven, and filling our place with the most vile and bitter smoke.  Unfortunately, this directly led to my sinuses becoming unbearably packed with gunk.  I normally would not mind, but I had a voice competition the following day.  I nearly cancelled, but I have never cancelled in the past and I didn't want to break that record even though I had a tough, up-hill battle.  So what were my strategies to overcome my smoke damaged voice?

1. I warmed up two pots of hot water with my coffee maker and drank it all - this is a trick I learned after traveling often and having to sing on the same day as your flight arrives.  Many times plane flights can dry out your vocal chords due to the environment in the plane cabin, so lots of warm water is a great remedy for many voice ailments.

2. Don't over-practice.  It's tough to keep yourself from warming-up if you're in bad voice, but if your voice is swollen, using it too forcefully can cause more friction and damage your voice even further.  Warm-up soft and very slow, while drinking all that warm water!

3. Blow your nose! This goes for everyone who sniffles at all.  If you are a singer and sniff up your snot every time it drains, you are just packing gunk in your sinuses where you need air to vibrate when you sing, plus you can inflame your throat if you swallow and cough up all that mucous.  Sniffling may be an habitual problem for some people, but blowing your nose will help you breathe easier, give you an easier and more resonant production of sound, and make it more enjoyable to sing.

As for the result of the competition, well, I was pleased that I was physically and vocally able to complete the audition.  It went better than I expected - I didn't win, but I tried as best as I could given the circumstances.

---

And now for your amusement, here is a Photo Plot from the opera for children that I was in "How the Camel Got Its Hump" by Leah Pulatie

The lovely "orchestra" begins the Overture

Prologue - Royce wants us to act out his favorite story, "How the Camel Got Its Hump"

The Ox, Horse, and Dog have to work hard at the beginning of the world and the Camel isn't helping!

The Animals plead with the Camel to help out

"It isn't fair, Camel, that you aren't helping us out and we're doing all the work"

The Horse has an idea - to ask the Camel nicely

The Horse pleads with the Camel to help - but the Camel ignores everyone saying only, "Humph"

The Horse has an idea - to go to the Man for help

The Animals bring a formal complaint to the Man about the Camel

The Animals plead with the Man to help

The Animals make a formal complaint to the Man that it isn't fair for the Camel to be lazy

The Animals pout because the Man won't bother helping

The Camel, who only says "Humph," protests any work - he even finds going on strike to be too much work!! - but he sure feels lonely and would like some friends

The Ox hears a strange sound...it might be a genie!

The Animals summon the genie

The Animals summon the magical Djinn of the desert to help

The Animals summon the magical Djinn

The Djinn, a genie, has appeared!!

The Djinn performs magic tricks

The Animals plead their case to the Djinn

The Djinn will help out the Animals!!!

The Animals find and capture the Camel in the audience

The Camel is captured by the Animals and the Djinn

The Djinn of the Desert helps the Animals and gives the Camel a giant hump

The Camel gets his hump!

Ox teaches Camel how to work

The Camel decides to help out his new friends with his new hump

Finale     

Lesson - You'll get the Cameelious Hump if you don't lend a hand!

Finale

Curtain Call    

Excitement!

Life sure has its means of pushing you along.  I remember growing up, my dad asking me "what's wrong," and in the likely case of responding "I'm bored," he would say, "well, do something."  Now to be fair, my brother complained about being bored more often than I did, but I would just sit around depressed wondering why I didn't have something to look forward to.  One thing always leads to another, and we somehow ended up in time-out for fighting.  Boredom = Trouble.  Even today, when I get bored, I immediately find something to do.  This unfortunate compulsion has led to many months of performances, the stressful completion of my doctoral exams, and several seasons of Mad Men on Netflix.

The latter end of 2012 was definitely the most stressful and least boring of my life, and now after a long month off, I am back to furiously not being bored.  Last week, as you may recall, I performed in a children's opera, "How the Camel Got Its Hump".  It was a terrifically cute production, and most importantly the kids loved it!  Essentially, we told the Rudyard Kipling story in a 35 minute opera, where we opened a giant toy box and played "Make Believe."

I'm a sad Horse because the Camel won't help the other animals with their daily chores

Now that it is finished, my days are becoming increasingly involved in accomplishing other goals.  I have been furiously applying for jobs at colleges and universities all over the place.  I am preparing for a recital and several major Bach-related solo performances.  And yesterday, I was asked by the Kansas City Symphony to perform on six educational concerts, similar to what I did last year, starting in April!  I always love a chance to perform with the Symphony and in Helzberg Hall.  Amazingly, I will perform at Helzberg Hall 10 times in a span of only 4 weeks!

I also was invited back to perform and record with the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers in June.  It was an amazing experience last year, our next album will be released in the Summer, and I cannot wait to perform again with some of the area's best singers and with one of the world's great minds for choral music!

If that wasn't exciting enough, I and several other Kansas City Chorale members had a Skype session with our managing agent about the Grammy's next week (I can't believe it's already so close!).  It is an interesting and exciting experience as we received our red carpet schedules, press releases, a list of talking points for interviews, and the list goes on.  It will certainly be unforgettable and I will have LOTS of updates on my facebook page - www.facebook.com/pinkall - as well as on this blog.

BUT that isn't even the most exciting and certainly not the most unexpected news lately - the most unexpected news being that I stepped ankle deep, both feet, socks, and shoes, in wet cement.  The most exciting news is that I had an interview this morning with the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games via Skype from Moscow!  I applied in August for a leadership or Director position within the area of Ceremony Music and Protocol for the next Olympics in Sochi, Russia. They are the Winter Olympics of course - but it is a somewhat unknown location to people on this side of the pond.  Sochi is on the coast of the Black Sea and even in winter it is warm and green with palm trees and all.  Many of the outdoor events will take place on the slopes of the adjacent mountain ranges while the indoor events and ceremonies will be held in the beautiful coastal resort city.

The interviewer was efficient and asked questions from "Why do you want to be a part of the Olympic Games?" to "Describe a time where you went beyond what was asked to complete a task."  The group interviewing me was in Moscow, which meant that I was awake VERY early this morning to catch them during work hours.  I was very happy and excited to take part, so some of my answers were...well, I could have given infinitely long answers on some topics.  They wanted to know my organizational habits, accomplishments, skills, thought processes, and even what makes me angry.  They even paused to find some quite specific supplemental questions to ask including, "Have you ever performed in front of large masses of people?", "Are you afraid of large masses of people?", "Are you afraid of heights?", and "Have you been a part of a large scale production or media event?"  I have had many great experiences in the recent past and have a working knowledge of what they are needing.  Hopefully, they will want me on board.  I thought the interview went really well, I thought they were very interested in my responses, and I'm very excited and anxious to hear back from them.

With so much excitement and so many things to look forward to, I shouldn't get into any trouble anytime soon!