Make Your Voice Heard

Are you auditioning for us this year? Add your voice to the blog. Send an email to wtoc@wolftrap.org with the word blog in the subject field, and I'll include your message in the next day's post. If you'd rather be anonymous, click on the "comment" link at the bottom of any of my posts. (I do have to screen these comments because of spam, but I promise I'll publish anything that's not profane.)

I'm documenting our side of the process, but we want to hear how it feels to you. It's especially important for you veterans to pass on a few words of advice to those who are new to this peculiar but necessary part of our business.

And...... We're Off!

Daily posts for the next 2.5 weeks. The audition tour starts tomorrow in Philadelphia. Then New York, Houston, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Vienna VA. 375 singers over 13 days of singing. More airplanes, rental cars, trains, taxis and hotels than I want to consider at this moment.

Packing is always a challenge, but particularly so this year because we're chaining together all of our cities without a break. The tight schedule makes it inadvisable to check baggage, so my challenge for today is to fit two weeks of stuff in one carry-on and a briefcase. Particularly difficult because the electronics alone fill about 75% of the allotted space...

• Laptop, power cable, mouse, broadband wireless card, flash drive
• MP3 recorder, power cable, microphone, USB cable, data storage
• Digital camera & charger
• Videocamera, mini-tripod, AC adapter, mini-DVs
• External hard drive, power source, A-B cable
• iPod, headphones, USB cable
• Office supplies: tape, markers etc
• Cell phone, charger
• Palm, charger, USB cable
• Extension cord, power strip, 3-prong adapter
• Signs, Scotch tape, markers, schedules, invoice forms for pianists and monitors, etc
• Printer, power cable, USB cable

Maybe I'll have to take the advice of this morning's Washington Post and wear all of my clothes in layers on the plane. But I'm not sure that mixing 5 layers of clothing and raging meopausal symptoms is a good thing... And could anyone tell me if a printer cartridge is a liquid or gel? Looks kinda solid to me, but the ingredients read like liquids. There's not exactly room for it in my pitiful zip-lock bag, but all I need is to get flagged as a troublemaker because I've put it in the depths of my bag. Especially since it's already going to take me forever to take all those layers of clothing off before they'll let me through security.

These are the important issues that consume me in these hours before the music begins. See you tomorrow in Philadelphia.