First Performance of the Semester!

Last weekend, on February 13th I had to opportunity to perform in my voice teacher's recital. It was my first big performance of the semester and I think my individual performance was only somewhat successful for numerous reasons. However, the overall recital was really great. The theme of his recital was 'Teaching Favorites' and my voice teacher, a lyric tenor, finally got a chance to perform a lot of the songs he uses to teach his students. It was a different kind of recital in that, instead of discussing a song or composer's background for each song, he discussed what each song did to help a young singer develop. For instance, when he performed Vaughan Williams' "Silent Noon," in the program notes he discussed the wonderful phrasing and how by working on this song helps the beginning singer learn how to create and apply this kind of phrasing to future songs. The song I performed was of the same sort in the program. He asked that I perform it since it was from a woman's point of view. It was a Spanish song by Grandados called "El Majo discreto" or, the discreet man. Its poetry was from the point of view of a woman whose man was ugly, but was worth it all the same because he remains loyal and keeps a secret. My teacher enjoys using this as a teaching song because it involves a leap of a 5th from a B flat to a high F (the low voice version in my case). Leaps like these help a young singer begin to learn how to position their mouth and where to feel the high note in their head in order to get a great tone out of the leap. The best way I could make the leap was by thinking about coming at the F from above. Just thinking about singing a higher pitch right before the F helped my voice to be in the correct position when I did sing the F.

My performance of "El Majo Discreto" was alright. Definitely not noteworthy. I was sick during the performance, unfortunately, so I wasn't in the best shape to sing. However, I made it through and am now preparing for my next performance coming up on March 10th-- Opera Workshop!