Sunday, June 7, 2015

Coming full circle: a transition back to music

I hinted in a previous post that there were changes afoot, and now is the time to share some personal information. I've held back from sharing professional information on my blog, because this is a hobby blog and I have felt strongly that it's important to keep that part of my life separate. I still feel that way to some degree, but I have some big changes coming and I would like to share them.

When I began this blog in 2008, I was, professionally, a musician and music teacher. I'm not going to bog this post down with too many details, but for a variety of reasons, when we moved to Washington, DC in 2013, I had to give that up for a while and work a non-music, non-teaching office job. It was more challenging than I had imagined, and I think that was a big part of why I had such a hard time with DC. I am sure that my distaste for Our Nation's Capital is in many ways my transferring my dissatisfaction with my life here to a dislike for the city itself. Regardless, I have been unhappy in DC, and DC will soon be in my past. I'm thrilled to be able to be returning to music in the fall, when I will return to my alma mater, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, for graduate school. We're moving back up to New England in a couple of months (HOORAY!) and I will be a full-time grad student. I hope to return to performing and teaching in the future, once I am a Master of Music. (What a strange term, but I'll play with those words.)

I am a classically-trained improvisational singer, and I explore many styles including jazz. If you are interested in taking a look and a listen, here are a couple of links from two of my favorite performances in the past couple of years: Both of the arrangements are my own, as are all the performances in each of those video playlists. In the future I hope to have a professional website to share, with more recordings and videos.

The next few months are going to be a big time of transition for me, as we do a long-distance move and I switch from working in an office full-time to being a music grad student full-time. I am looking forward to this change more than I can possibly put into words, so I won't even try to articulate it. I do hope to continue with this blog and all my mail habits as best I can, though I may be exploring the possibility of ads on this blog. I will apologize again for posting less than I had hoped throughout the past year - auditioning for grad school took up a lot of time and energy, and I kept that under my hat for a long time! - and I thank all my blog readers, both longtime and newcomers, for staying with me through the journey.

In the meantime, I'll keep writing letters and postcards, and I promise - the next post will be back on track and mail-related!