The Nightingale
The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang.
Heinrich Heine
This summer was a journey deeper into the ever beguiling world of music and into the life of a singer. I sang my Italian debut as Mercedes in Carmen with the esteemed conductor Christopher Larkin and director David Gately. I also attended a wonderful masterclass week in Indemini with Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet. I have learned many wonderful lessons and met some incredible people and this has inspired me to reach out and take all the singing opportunities I can and to perform and connect with others.
I had taken some time out of the singing world previously to this intensive summer of progress, in order to realign myself with the art form I had grown to feel detached from. The singing world and all its wonders is certainly a magical place and yet it has its lows, as with all, there has to be a balance. I am now on a new, or renewed journey as a singer and my goals have changed dramatically. I am now intending to exceed barriers and find new and experimental forms of self expression and try to detach myself from my own concepts of perfection, which I learned is a hindrance. In my pursuit of perfection I was missing the natural delight of singing and the flow of energy that comes with accepting and permitting and of course, sharing. In my attempt to conquer vocal technique and get the perfect resonance on certain notes in my upper range, I was missing out on connecting with myself and therefore with others in my performances. I was hiding away my voice like a broken toy that was yet to be fixed and not ready to play with. I could not enjoy my singing, only critique it and obsess over all the flaws it seemed laden by. After some deep reflection and experimentation I have discovered the more I let go of fixed ideas about what I should be doing with my singing and what I should sound like, the more I am connecting to my self and to my voice, the more pleasure I feel in singing and the more I can connect with and communicate with others.
