Hear lucky-- no download necessary!

Now I've got a quicktime file up, so you don't have to download anything! And I also posted a clip from my demo cd a few years back of my Chanson du Depart de Don Quichotte-- it's quite a contrast to the Moses. I don't like my shallow "ee" vowels on this recording-- it's something that I've mostly fixed since then....

Hear lucky online

Well, I'm in the process of putting up a webpage and here are a couple of recent sound files: (And I'd love to get feedback about the availability of the files-- were they ok to access?)

Both of these are live performances and the sound quality isn't terribly good, but I'm very happy with the performances. They are also not characteristic of my operatic singing (I'm using a "rough, spiritualesque" technique), but they are fun, and they show the basic character of my voice. I think you'll need stuff it to download these until I can figure out a better way of doing things.

Go Down Moses takes a minute to get going, but toward the end (after a couple of transpositions and a long accelerando) I really cut loose.

Rise Up is me singing at Music By the Lake, and yes, that chorus is really yellin their silly heads off!

Your Chance to Catch Lucky mo in the act!

Here's a shot of yours truly singing Orgon in Tartuffe with Operamoda. I've been invited to reprise said role with said company at the Chicago Cultural Center on Feb 19th at 3:00 and again at 4:00. We just started rehearsing and everyone sounds incredible. It is a real pleasure to sing with OM, as they are IMHO THE up-and-coming chicago company-- and already making big waves as a company that's keeping opera a "living art."

This time the show will be set in the American south (think texas) and I'll be trying my best to convey a subtle George Bush quality in Orgon (as much as singing will permit.)

Details will probably be added to the Operamoda web page here



And here's another shot from the OM Tartuffe. This one is with Kevin Keys and William Bennet who are both great young singers.

Click on the Pic for Mari Lyn's Spectacular "Una voce poco fa"

Madam Mari Lyn was the host of a very popular Regan era Public Access show in NYC. The performance is remarkable for her complete lack of talent, and for her apparent ignorance of that fact. IMO, she puts Florence Foster Jenkins to shame.

"monkey squaking noices."


Thanks to the folks at NFCS for the link.

Whoa!

"Don't dream it, be it!"

Thank you Dr. Frankenfurter for those words of timeless wisdom.

So at several points in my life I've been forced to read those ridiculous books by motivational speakers, you know those books with pictures of guys with really perfect teeth and bad hair and a bunch of made up words-- things like "top 732 secrets of super successating" or " wealth-alate your sales" or "super incomic wealth creative capitalizationizing."

Well anyways, those guys always say stuff like "if you visualize the ideal parking spot, then it will be there." And that "internal-affirmationizing" will bring "real-world" results. And although I've always believed that these guys were nicking the tippy edge of truth with a lucky bit of stray hot air, they're mostly full of crap.

But after writing yesterday's post, I felt more confident than ever about my desire for a music career. I got myself all worked up and said to myself "well what can I do today to make it happen." And just then the phone rang.

To make a long-ish story short-ish, yesterday I... got two gigs-- a nice concert in April and an opera role in the summer with a singer who is one of my favorite recording artists, an offer for a voice facutly position at a University, an offer to help me complete my Masters degree at a very good school, and finally a call-back for another opera.

The odd thing is: after saying to myself "I want this!" and having the universe say "uh, ok," it made me kind of scared....

Now if I could just put my Jedi powers to work more often....

"Pizza appearo!"

Ah, we have Chicago-style leftovers in the fridge! I'm getting good at this.

"Big-tittied beautiful naked women just don't fall out of the sky, you know."

Missing the Blogosphere

So basically I've been really busy.

My goal for the year is to double my rate of failure.

You see, last year, I had to turn down 6 roles due to fatal conflicts with my day job (which I also love.) When I did the math, I would have made about the same performing full time as a soloist as I did with my day job. Which puts me in the odd prediciment of contemplating quiting the day job I love....

The other odd thing is that I got almost everything that I auditioned for, and I got called back for everything I auditioned for. I take this to mean that I'm generally auditioning below my level. And, I'm just not auditioning enough.

This brings us to doubling my rate of failure. Firstly, if I'm failing more, it means that I'm auditioning more, and for the right things. I've also been limitting myself too much by refusing to audition for musical theater, touring shows, straight theater, and well-paying ensemble parts-- I think that I could learn something from all of these things.

Secondly, apart from the love of teaching, predictability keeps me in my day job (but hey I could always volunteer again....) But if I get to the point where I consistently would make double performing what I would make teaching, it wouldn't make sense to keep the day job.

And this is part of the reason that I've been so busy. I've been trying like mad to fail.






Missing the Blogosphere

As a last note, I have to point out that I miss my "friends" in the blogging world. It's strange that one can learn to really care about what happens in the lives of folks--some from far-away places-- known only from the pages of online journals. Best of luck to all of you!