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!

Simon Says...

I have certainly had the most amazing week so far.  Last Saturday, I began singing with the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers - for most of the world, that's a big "so what!"

Well, it has been one of the most interesting music experiences of my life.  First, this is a small professional choir.  Its purpose is to record an album this week with singers from all over the nation and world.  Boy am I lucky, they just happen to record in Kansas City - the group is as diverse as possible, but the sound is incredible.  It certainly is amazing.

From the get go, it is clearly apparent that this recording is ultimately important - I expect that they will want to submit it for recording awards and such.  But, Simon Carrington is a sweet genius.  He is an amazing person with a great attitude and bright English accent, but he is to the point - his rehearsals are premeditated and intense in all the best ways.  We begin with careful but difficult warm-ups challenging perfect intervals - to any Joe Schmo, most wouldn't be able to tell the difference between perfect and horrible, but pitch accuracy is vital and just the slightest problems will be noticed in a group like this.

Our rehearsals are long, and frankly, I was not in the least bit pleased with myself after the first rehearsal.  It was apparent that the other singers, all super-professional singers and choristers, were better prepared for the situation than I was - I spent hours Saturday night practicing; ironing out my problems.  Yesterday and today have been a blast however and I don't think many singers would believe the detail that has been discussed such as:

A group of perfectly tuned 4ths and 5ths descending and ascending in parallel motion were not staying in tune with a held high G by the sopranos in a John Corigliano piece.  The problem is that descending perfectly tuned 4ths and 5ths will be flatter than equal temperament because of physics - so we have to purposefully tweak the 4ths and 5ths in very precise ways to make it sound correct.  One person described the problem as "we're singing a B sharp instead of a C" - let that screw with your mind.

Other problematic details include finding your note in a piece opening in a cluster chord, without an opening pitch; which ethnic dialect of Latin to use; the precise length and intensity of a breath, the letter "f", a crescendo, the glottal mechanism for beginning on a vowel, and even our facial reactions (which effect the brightness of the sound).  All of these are controlled to a precise detail and it is incredible to work with such amazing musicians who can pull off the most impressive tasks.

We even have sound technicians in the room yelling at us, even personally at times, what we did wrong and why, all to a very small detail.  If you are a singer, these experiences will teach you so much about discipline in making art - if perfection is ideal, it takes people like this to at least attempt it convincingly.  So, with that said, we will soon have an album to release, and we will have a concert on Friday at the beautiful Episcopal Cathedral in KC (at 7:30) as well as a concert on Saturday at Corpus Christi Church in Lawrence (at 7:30).  We are also recording for NPR today, and Simon will be in a live interview on Kansas Public Radio at 11:00am on Thursday.  I hope you are able to hear us live!

On a different topic, I was able to get a private hearing of the organ at Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center from a good friend, Jan Kraybill, who is its caretaker.  It was amazing, an elevator takes you right up into the middle of the organ pipes.  You must walk through the pipes and wood planks winding their way out to the console which overlooks the beautiful hall.  And the sound was startling - I was so excited I laughed uncontrollably through Saint-Saens.  Thank you Jan for the amazing opportunity!