Here is my music for you

I have mentioned a number of times that grad school has kept me from my letter-writing habits... and at last, I am finished with grad school. I am looking forward to a return to letter-writing, especially over my summer vacation - more on that later! - but now I would like to take a moment to share with you an accomplishment of which I'm very proud. Did you know that I'm a professional musician and voice teacher?

On 23 April 2017, I gave a recital for the completion of my Master of Music degree at New England Conservatory of Music. I prepared for this recital for over two years, and it was a very big accomplishment for me, in large part because it marked my debut as a songwriter. I sang 14 songs, 5 of which were my own original songs, and accompanied myself on piano on 4 of them. (For the others, I either sang a cappella or had other fine musicians collaborate on piano.) You can see all the videos on my recital page on my professional website: http://www.ilonatipp.com/solo-concert-2017. Of, if you'd like to see the songs in the order in which I programmed and performed them, you can see the the YouTube playlist.

I'll share with you here one particularly letter-related song I wrote:


© Copyright Ilona Tipp 2017, All Rights Reserved

This song, "Best of the Real," had its genesis in me staring at a pile of letters to which I needed to respond, and gave birth to the opening song lyric, "all the letters left unwritten..."

I hope you enjoy my music. You can peruse more of it on my musician website at ilonatipp.com. I'm not yet sure Where I May Go next professionally, but I'll be sure to keep you posted. I would love to hear your feedback on my music if you'd like to share!

And on the letter-writing front, tomorrow we move up to Maine for the summer, and I always joyfully return to much happy mail-making over summer vacation.

All information, music, lyrics, sound recordings, content, and linked content connected to a third party storage website on this web page is owned by Ilona Tipp. Any attempt or claim of ownership by any other party other than Ilona Tipp is illegal by all copyright laws, and can be pursued with legal action. By downloading content from this web page, the party doing so completely understands the restrictions of privacy outlined above (if applicable) and that all content is the intellectual property of and owned by Ilona Tipp. © Copyright Ilona Tipp 2017, All Rights Reserved

Happy New Year! I'm still here!

Hello dear blog readers,
I'm sorry to have been so absent from this blog. I've been busy with grad school, to the point of where it's overtaken all my time for hobbies like letters and postcards. (I haven't even sent a Postcrossing postcard in months!) I'd like to say I'll be better about it now, but realistically... until I get through my graduation in May, I'll probably lay low. But I'm still out here, writing mail when I can, and dreaming about the day when I can return to mail (and my garden!) in the future. Rest assured I am loving my grad program, and if you're curious about what I've been up to professionally, please check out my music website at ilonatipp.com.

Happy New Year, and Happy Mailing!

Practice room vs. writing desk

I haven't written any letters in weeks. I haven't even sent any postcards. I've been in a practice room, often times the one pictured above. (No, I don't play the drum, but I wish I did!) It's been great work, lots of fruitful musical progress, but only music-related (and school-related) writing.

My semester is wrapping up, and I hope to put pen to paper - and new posts to blog! - later in May. I've got some exciting news to share about summer projects...

2016: a year of great (space) stamps

I am extremely excited for the U.S. Postal Service stamp releases this year. There are some great stamps coming! Space and planets are a major theme, and there are three planetary releases: Views of our Planets, Pluto--Explored!, and The Moon global forever stamp. This article has more info about all three issues. I think the "Views of our Planets" stamps look particularly gorgeous and I can't wait to get my hands on them. Word on the street is that these will be released at the World Stamp Show in NYC somewhere between late May and early June.



Continuing the "space" theme, shown above are the stamps that so many of us are really geeking out about: Star Trek stamps! These stamps commemorate the 50th anniversary of the iconic TV show's premiere, and though I don't know the exact release date, it looks to be somewhere in the second half of the year. I'll have to get my eyes on them in person before I pass judgment, but I admit I have reservations about the design. What's with the grainy look? Oh well. I shouldn't quibble about Star Trek stamps, because it is a very fabulous idea.



I'm also a big fan of all the stamp releases that feature musicians... but I'm over the moon (ha! Space pun!) about the upcoming Sarah Vaughan stamps. Jazz singers are always close to my heart - I sing a lot of jazz myself, and there's so much to learn from any singer's individual style - but "Sassy" is in a class by herself.



Sarah Vaughan is not only one of my favorite jazz singers, but she's the one who made me first fall in love with jazz vocals back when I was in high school (and, at the time, singing only classical music). Her style, technique, and artistry are unparalleled, and I can't wait to buy up a TON of these gorgeous stamps to use on my letters. They'll be released on Mach 29, so we don't have too much longer to wait. Design thoughts: again, I'll wait to hold the inked paper in my hands, but this design idea gets a thumbs up from me. I think the artwork is lovely, and I appreciate the decision to use an illustration (a painting?) instead of a photograph. This really captures the mood of her style and her immersion in the music. I love that her eyes are closed, though I know not everyone will agree on that point.

There are more great stamps than I could even share here, and I highly recommend a look at the 2016 stamp release preview to see them all... but I'll just mention that the Pets and Jack-O-Lanterns also look very promising.

And I haven't forgotten about my promise to do a blog post about my new stamp organization system, which is working quite well so far. I have an unexpected snow day today (blizzard in Boston! the first flakes just started falling here in NH at about 11am) so maybe I'll manage some photos and some work on that. But for now, enjoy the stamp preview!

...of serious mail neglect...

I wish I had something interesting to say, other than "grad school ate my life." But, really:

Grad school continues to eat my life.

I didn't even read my mail for over a month, let alone write any. It was a little sad, from a mail and postal perspective, but I assure you I was happy and fulfilled with much music.

However, there was a pen-pal / mail-sized hole in my life, and on this, my mini-Thanksgiving break, I did manage to read 6 weeks worth of mail (not that much, really, since I haven't been sending any), and even write a bunch of letters and postcards, too.

So, I'm not dead, I'm just buried in grad school and music. I have a longer break in December/January, and I look forward to spending more time with mail then, when I am between semesters and without quite so many obligations, assignments, and performances hanging over my head.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving, and happy mailing, all!

I was worried this would happen...

Wow, is this my longest interval between posts ever? Oh no. I can explain:

GRAD SCHOOL ATE MY LIFE.

I'm enrolled in the maximum number of credit hours, serving as a TA for a challenging class taught by a brilliant professor, going to as many (mostly free!) concerts as I can, and trying to collaborate with as many other musicians as I can. I commute via train (in fact, I'm posting this from a train now: thank you, Amtrak wi-fi!) and subway and foot or bike, and I have to plan on a door-to-door travel time of a little over 2 hours, each way. I'm doing this commute almost every weekday. I get weekends mostly at home, but I spend a lot of weekend time practicing and staying on top of my coursework.

I am happy as a clam, folks, and loving every minute of it - living and breathing music, and not taking one iota of it for granted - but I really have to prioritize right now. I am not writing many letters or postcards... in fact, I am loathe to admit this but perhaps sharing it publicly will help me get it done: I haven't even finished unpacking my stationery or my etsy inventory! I'm searching for balance, and am still taking some serious time to unwind by writing a little bit of mail here and there, but... I don't think I'll be blogging much until I have a break. (Maybe lots of blog posts and lots of mail over the winter holidays?)

I did visit a great little stationery store on a wee getaway to Maine last month, and I took a couple of photos and got some great stationery (of course I couldn't walk away empty-handed, even though I'm hardly writing any letters these days!) so I hope to post about that next. But maybe get my stationery fully unpacked and organized, and re-open my etsy store, first!

I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely fall, full of good mail.

The photo accompanying this post is of the gorgeous Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory, where I'm studying, and I took the photo at convocation in early September.

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:

• "I Like the Sunrise" by Duke Ellington: piano/vocal arrangement from May 2013 performance
• "Throw it Away" by Abbey Lincoln: a cappella vocal arrangement from May 2015 performance (apologies for the very poor video quality!)

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!

Mozart stamp from the Czech Republic

There are many things I love about Postcrossing: the serendipity of unexpected postcards from around the world showing up in my mailbox, the fairness of receiving exactly the number of postcards that I send... but I also love the incredible variety of foreign postage stamps it brings me. I'm not really a stamp collector, per se, but I am certainly an aficionado, and I appreciate a fine stamp as much as anyone.

So I was extremely excited to receive this beautiful stamp of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from the Czech Republic, issued in 2011. I find the design especially beautiful - not just a simple portrait or profile, but instead an active image of this vibrant personality in motion, conducting, superimposed over an image of the original score to Don Giovanni. It even illustrates what a clothing dandy Mozart was, with the fine frock and lacy cuffs. This one is a keeper!

For more information on the stamp, check out this fine blog post about Czech stamps.