I Narcisi Sono Sbocciati

Every year at this time I'm reminded of my Italian teacher Signora Spinelli. When I started visiting her DC apartment twice a week for my crash course in Italian, I spoke nary a word. She never spoke to me in English, and for months I thought my head would explode every time I went for a lesson. But eventually it all seeped in. That's the way children learn language. Excruciating sometimes, but amazingly effective.

One of the first phrases I understood, oddly enough, was one that she uttered on March day in 1982. "I narcisi sono sbocciati" - the daffodils have bloomed. And indeed they had, in the spectacular way they do in Rock Creek Park.

Not a single spring has passed in the last 25 years that I haven't uttered that phrase and thought of those Italian lessons. Full of tea and biscotti, and the reassuring murmurs of "bella e rotonda" as I passed through my first pregnancy. Resonating with cheers and murmured epithets as we listened to and critiqued the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts. My Verdi and Puccini scores still carry the Italian-to-Italian translations that aided my progress from simple vocabulary to poetry.

Pausa

I'm about to disappear into the springtime for two entire weeks. First of all, to ride my new bicycle and then sit for hours by the lake. Then, rested and refreshed, to embark on college visits with my son. I'll be back the second week of April, and postings will resume with renewed vigor. In the meantime, feel free to surf the archives. If you're looking for a place to start, scroll down. Ciao!

Kim


The Equation
When Grand Opera Isn't
A Response: The End of The Great Big American Voice
Audition Tour: New York - Day 1
Repertoire & Casting
Unedited Audition Comments
The Bassi Speak
Living Dangerously: More Unedited Audition Comments
Yes / And
Applicant Screening: The First Round
Audition Tour 2007

Only If You're Not a Screwup

The twin mantras of Accountability and Consistency are part of my DNA. For much of my young adult life I felt as it I could wriggle away from their grasp. Not so. And a good thing, too, for it's probably because of my compulsive nature that I'm able to survive in arts management. Those huge creative talents that are recruited to run arts organizations are often very sexy on paper, but they usually flame out - hopefully without taking the organization with them. But for the rest of us earnest worker-bee types, it's hard to pull away from the to-do lists long enough to think globally and critically about where we want our organizations to be headed.

As I am reminded, consistency is not always a virtue.



A recent post on Butts in the Seats has me thinking about intangible things. An excerpt:

Most mission statements for arts organizations allude to providing quality to the community if they don't do so outright. But when the doors open, are you offering the very best quality, the top quality you can afford or the top quality people are willing to pay for? Or does your product fall right there in the middle of the bell curve--something of middling quality that the largest group of people is willing to pay for?

I have no answers. Yet.


What I Did Last Week
A weekly feature justifying my pre-season existence and sharing my administrative pain.

Stump Speeches: Met with new members of our boards, and in doing so, attemped to whip up a small frenzy of excitment for opera with people who have never seen one before. Failing that, tried to at least make myself appear to be a reasonably intelligent and approachable person that they might be willing to speak to again.

Charts, Grids, and Lists: Created seating charts for Box Office. Churned out weekly assignment grids for all artists and staff to be sure that no one is overbooked (or overlooked...) during any portion of the summer. Organized and distributed booking and contract information for next year's chamber music series.

Show Me the Money: Helped churn out some funding proposals, including the inevitable hardware and software tussle with creating audio/visual work samples.

Intern Interviews: Ah, the enthusiasm of the collegiate set. I could never have competed with any of these folks in my early 20's. Ambitious, energetic, focused, and determined.


Perspective

My daughter spent spring break (last week) doing reclamation work in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. She's back at school, trying to care as much about midterms and papers as she did before she spent a week working with people whose lives have been turned inside-out for the last year and a half.



Joseph & His *^#*$^#$% Dreamcoat

If you've followed this blog for a while, you might remember that I regularly indulge (!) in amateur musical theatre projects. This week brings 3 performances of Joseph - with 72 cast members between the ages of 7 & 18.

I persist because I believe that participating in a well-crafted theatrical production can be a memorable and formative experience in a young person's life. It feeds the soul, teaches discipline, allows for individual creativity, demonstrates the importance of teamwork and opens horizons all at the same time. But between trying to keep them all well, negotiating with their teachers and sports coaches about conflicting schedules, cajoling teenagers through their hormonal swings, and catching the little ones in that sweet spot between befuddlement and boredom, well... let's just say I'll sleep well come Sunday night. :)

(Photo credit Charlie Gandy)

Falcone

Winter's last gasp brought our red-tailed hawk back to his perch outside my office window. I like to think he's waiting for the return of Volpone and its hawkish characters Corvina (the Crow) and Cornaccio (the Raven).


Tickets on sale today for this summer's performances! Start here.

The Studio Lives

The Wolf Trap Opera Studio is off and running. Josh Winograde (an alum of the WTOC and the boss of the inaugural year of the Studio) was here with us all week, and we made offers to 14 singers, all of which were accepted.

Listening to the studio auditions was a change from the status quo, and an ultimately refreshing one. It was a different kind of challenge - even more about recognizing potential than our "regular" auditions. When we choose our Filene Young Artist roster, we're looking for career potential, but we expect most of the big skill areas (vocal technique, language, style, deportment) to be almost fully formed. One can't and shouldn't expect that of a 21-year-old.

For those of you who are interested in such things, here are some demographic stats:

Academic status

• 2 are enrolled in their first year of graduate study


• 1 is between undergraduate and graduate study


• 8 are getting their undergraduate degrees this year


• 3 will be rising college seniors in the fall.

Academic affiliations ( one singer from each school except as noted)

• Indiana University


• Ithaca College


• James Madison University


• The Juilliard School (2 singers)


• New England Conservatory


• Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts


• Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts


• Temple University


• University of Maryland


• University of North Texas (2 singers)


• University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music (2 singers)

You Go, Girl

Great news from the March edition of Opera News. I was on staff here in the mid-90's when Emily Pulley sang Cleopatra and Fiordiligi at The Barns. She's a salt-of-the-earth lady with a heart of gold and her feet firmly planted on the ground.

Thinking of Emily and that Cosi production reminds me of one of those performances when my life flashed before my eyes. I was playing the harpsichord, and she and her colleagues were singing the recitative that leads into the Act I Trio. Someone jumped ahead a couple of lines. No problem. Modulate quick like a bunny and catch up to them. Then a few lines later, someone decided to loop back and pick up the lines that were missed. OK.... But then of course, when we re-arrived at the lines that had already been sung (following this?), the decision was made to skip over them. Landing us mere seconds away from a cadence that absolutely had to be in E major, or we would've crash-landed in E Major.

It was one of those 20-second moments that play out in slow motion. I must've sounded like I was playing some godforsaken 12-tone arrangement of a Mozart recitative. Perhaps that's why I enjoy Instant Opera so much :)

Need to Re-Fuel

Today was one of those days... struggling with a DVD work sample for a grant application and feeling fogged-in and disconnected. I'm more than a little tired and stupid, so I'll stop here. Off to tonight's chamber music concert by the Borromeo Quartet. Scroll down for some stolen bits of humor below, if you have a few more moments to waste :)

Completely Recreational

This YouTube clip came to me through so many different channels last week that I can't imagine that anyone hasn't seen it yet. As someone who squared off with Rachmaninoff's piano music in public for the very first time this year, I was particularly charmed.

How to Cook a Conductor

As Victor Borge reminded us, humor is truth. I have no idea how to attribute the recipe below. But as someone who has had to follow and mirror opera conductors from my backstage conducting post, I especially like the part about "vague, slow, circular motions."

Ingredients
One large conductor, or two small assistant conductors
Ketchup
26 large garlic cloves
Crisco or other solid vegetable shortening (lard may be used)
1 cask cheap wine
1 lb. alfalfa sprouts
2 lbs. assorted yuppie food, such as tofu or yogurt
One abused orchestra

First, catch a Conductor. Remove the tail and horns. Carefully separate the large ego and reserve for sauce. Remove any batons, pencils (on permanent loan from the Principal Second Violin) and long articulations and discard. Remove the hearing aid and discard (it never worked anyway).

Examine your conductor carefully - many of them are mostly large intestine. If you have such a Conductor, you will have to discard it and catch another. Clean the Conductor as you would a squid, but do not separate the tentacles from the body. If you have an older Conductor, such as one from a Major Symphony Orchestra or Summer Music Festival, you may wish to tenderize by pounding the Conductor on a rock with timpani mallets or by smashing the Conductor between two large cymbals.

Next, pour 1/2 of the cask of wine into a bath tub and soak the Conductor in the wine for at least 12 hours (exceptions: British, German and some Canadian Conductors have a natural beery taste which some people like and the wine might not marry well with this flavor. Use your judgment).

When the Conductor is sufficiently marinated, remove any clothes the Conductor may be wearing and rub it all over with the garlic. Then cover your Conductor with the Crisco. using vague, slow circular motions. Take care to cover every inch of the Conductor's body with the shortening. If this looks like fun, you can cover yourself with Crisco too, removing clothes first.

Next, take your orchestra and put as much music out as the stands will hold without falling over, and make sure that there are lots of really loud passages for everyone, big loud chords for the winds and brass, and lots and lots of tremolos for the strings. (Bruckner might be appropriate). Rehearse these passages several times, making certain that the brass and winds are always playing as loud as they can and the strings are tremolo-ing at their highest speed. This should ensure adequate flames for cooking your Conductor. If not, insist on taking every repeat and be sure to add the second repeats in really large symphonies.

Ideally, you should choose your repertoire to have as many repeats as possible, but if you have a piece with no repeats in it at all, just add some, claiming that you have seen the original, and there was an ink blot there that "looked like a repeat" to you and had obviously been missed by every other fool who had looked at this score. If taking all the repeats does not generate sufficient flames, burn the complete set of score and parts to all of the Bruckner symphonies.

When the flames have died down to a medium inferno, place your Conductor on top of your orchestra (they won't mind as they are used to it) until it is well tanned, the hair turns back to its natural color and all of the fat has dripped out. Be careful not to overcook or your Conductor could end up tasting like stuffed ham.

Make a sauce by combining the ego, sprouts and ketchup to taste, placing it all in the blender and pureeing until smooth. If the ego is bitter, sweeten with honey to taste. Slice your Conductor as you would any turkey. Serve accompanied by the assorted yuppie food and the remaining wine with the sauce on the side.

WARNING: Due to environmental toxins present in conductor feeding areas, such as heavy metals, oily residue from intensive PR machinery manufacture, and extraordinarily high concentrations of E.coli, cryptosporidium, and other hazardous organisms associated with animal wastes, the Departments for Conductor Decimation (DCD) recommend that the consumption of conductors be limited to one per season. Overconsumption of conductors has been implicated in the epidemiology of a virulent condition known as "Bataan fever." Symptoms of this disorder include swelling of the brain, spasms in the extremities, delusions of competence, auditory hallucinations and excessive longevity.

***********************************

Bataan Fever indeed. We know it well. See you next week.

The Fox, The Star & The Flute

I know it didn’t look much like summer here in Virginia this week, but this too shall pass. To conjure up some heat, here, finally, is information on our 2007 season! More details will be found at www.wolftrap.org/opera in a couple of days.

First, two operas in new productions at The Barns, our unique indoor chamber venue:

Volpone
Unfaithfully based on the comedy by Ben Jonson

Music by John Musto
Libretto by Mark Campbell

Friday, June 22 at 8 pm
Sunday, June 24 at 2 pm
Friday, June 29 at 8 pm
Sunday, July 1 at 2 pm

Wolf Trap commissioned Volpone in 2001, and John Musto and Mark Campbell hit a home run with the premiere in March 2004. Since then we’ve been asked many times about bringing it back, and we’re happy that this year’s audition tour netted us a great cast. Because the premiere performances were outside of our normal summer season, and because it sold out, many folks missed Volpone at its premiere. Don’t miss it this time – tickets go on sale next Friday, March 9.

The critics had a good time, too. Here’s the propaganda:

• "A masterpiece was born.” The Washington Post


• “Volpone employs everything from Broadway to bel canto in a ferociously clever musical adaptation of Ben Jonson’s play. Mr. Musto is not afraid to entertain." The New York Observer


• “An effervescent black comedy… witty, unsentimental, and thoroughly engaging.” The Wall Street Journal


• “…a caffeinated score by John Musto and a rhyme-happy libretto by Mark Campbell…” Opera News

John and Mark believe that comedy is in short supply in today’s new opera climate. They’ve set about correcting that imbalance, and you’ll be so glad they did.

L’Étoile

Emmanuel Chabrier

Friday, July 27 at 8 pm
Sunday, July 29 at 2 pm
Friday, August 3 at 8 pm
Sunday, August 5 at 2 pm

It’s difficult to be silly and elegant at the same time, but this French operetta manages it. I became acquainted with L’Étoile when I saw the production Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera shared in 2001. It immediately went on our “short list” of pieces to consider for Wolf Trap when the casting was right. And this year, it certainly is.

Recitals with Steven Blier

Steve comes back for his 14th consecutive summer. He’s a brilliant colleague, a musical inspiration, and an important mentor for an entire generation of Wolf Trappers. 2007 brings us a Tale of Two Cities:

Berlin Night Life
Saturday, June 2 at 8 pm

• Steve’s description: Songs from Berlin's theaters and cabarets, exploring the sexual mores and political currents of Berlin during the Roaring 20s.


• The cast will also introduce us to the song of the Comedian Harmonists – an internationally famous, all-male ensemble that was one of the most successful musical groups in Europe leading up to World War II.

Manhattan Diaries
Saturday, August 11 at 8 pm

• Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, John Musto and others.


• “I Happen to Like New York”… “Take Me Back to Manhattan,”… “Down in the Depths on the Ninetieth Floor” ...

Mozart’s Magic Flute

Filene Center (outdoor amphitheatre)
Friday, August 17 at 8 pm
Saturday, August 18 at 8pm

Flute is back, after an unprecedented 8-year absence from the Filene Center stage! It’s a great piece for us, for so many reasons, and even I am finding myself looking forward to this, my 9th production. Flute is magical when the sun sets over the hill, and it’s possibly the perfect opera for our roster of young artists.

An entire generation of singers began their careers with Flute. Nathan Gunn, the Papageno for this season’s Metropolitan Opera production, first bounded onto the stage as the feathered birdcatcher in 1994 at the Filene Center. Dawn Upshaw sang her first Pamina at Wolf Trap in 1985. Mary Dunleavy launched her young career as the Queen of the Night here in 1994, in the same production that featured Eric Owens (of recent Grendel fame at Los Angeles Opera) as Sarastro.

Special Concert Event!

Carmen
in concert
The Filene Center
Thursday, June 28 at 8:15 pm

Alums Denyce Graves and Simon O’Neill return to the Trap to sing Carmen and Jose. Members of our 2007 Filene Young Artist roster fill out the rest of the cast. The brilliant Stephen Lord conducts the National Symphony Orchestra. It doesn’t get much better than this.

And, of course...

Instant Opera!
Children's Theatre-in-the-Woods
July 17-21 at 11:15 am

Opera by "Mad Libs!” Improv opera for kids and their parents.
Last year's masterpieces included Sponge Bob Steals the Princess, Trouble in Disneyworld, and The Penguin and the Troll. If I weren’t in the cast myself, I wouldn’t believe that this could be done.

The audience fills in the Mad Libs blanks: Once upon a time in __________, _________ and __________ did ___________ every day, until ______________ came along to _____________.

As in… “Once upon a time in a castle, a bat and a princess ate green eggs and ham every day until SpongeBob Square Pants came along to steal the princess!”

We sing and play furiously for the next 10-15 minutes, alternating improvised recitative with snippets of standard arias.

That’s it for now! Next week, an update on the Wolf Trap Opera Studio.

The Attention Span of a Gnat

A few links today. With apologies for the fact that I seem to be incapable of a clear, linear thought.

First, this on the PBS blog "Mediashift" - some thoughts on the "Attention Economy." Very much on my mind at this time of year when we're trying to put together season marketing materials. If I never had to write any more ad or brochure copy in my life, it wouldn't be too soon.

I have great respect and not a small amount of amazement at people who choose to do PR and marketing. Scrambling to get the public's attention is not something I ever envisioned myself doing, since I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to escape detection. Never considered myself a true introvert, but I was re-thinking this when I found myself agreeing to a surprising degree with this recent Washington Post article.

I don't mean to overstate this. I wouldn't consider myself shy, exactly, but you'd be surprised how many people in the performing arts are introverts at heart. That doesn't mean we're afraid of being in front of people when we have a job to do, though. Give me (or any of us) a gripping piece of music to perform, or even a topic about which we're passionate, and it's a different scenario. But working the room during a cocktail hour? Shoot me now. That's a whole separate Circle of Hell that Dante missed.

I've gotten completely off-topic.

Facing the Music

One more link - to this article about the New World Symphony in last Sunday's New York Times. It was so much like reading about our own young artist company, and it's surprising that the instrumental music world has so few opportunities like this.

"In the increasingly professionalized world of modern orchestras, where merely playing beautifully no longer guarantees musical greatness, ticket sales or successful capital campaigns, New World has set itself a distinctive mission: to mold graduates of elite conservatories and university music programs into the ultimate orchestra players while also trying to field a world-class performing ensemble."

Correspondingly, in the world of modern opera, merely singing beautifully no longer guarantees a career, either. And although many programs designed for emerging professional singers have as a mission the "molding of graduates from elite conservatories," we are one of the very few who do so while fielding an entire opera company - the equivalent of the New World Symphony.

Teutonic & Gallic

Chorus auditions this week, for our soon-to-be-named August opera at the Filene Center and a very-special-concert-opera performance in June. One in French and one in German. (Still speaking in code, I know. Sorry. I know that some of you are enjoying this guessing game, and some of you are, shall we say, getting very warm...)

Anyway, our audition instructions said to bring an aria in German or French. It's amazing how different from the norm the auditions are, given these parameters. Under typical circumstances, the rep skews overwhelming Italian, with English a distant second, and German and French coming in right after that. (And a smattering of Russian and Czech bringing up the rear.) But instead of all that Italian, we're getting a full-on dose of Wagner, Mozart (Flute and Abduction), Weber, Massenet, Bizet and Gounod. Have to say I'm enjoying it.

And if you're in the mood for some more sleuthing, you might want to try to figure out what leads me to re-direct readers here.

Sign-Off

Pertaining to nothing except the fact that it seized my imagination... this excerpt from my current bedside reading (Gilead):

These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some notice.

Maybe this isn't artibrary at all, and I've come full circle.

See you next week with some summer repertoire announcements!

Ice Day

Ah, the Wintry Mix. It means that I get to catch up on the blog, nag my son about cleaning his room, finish the audition feedback requests, and attack a 3-month backlog of ironing.

Feedback

Back when I was doing my music therapy degree, we used to study biofeedback. In the mid-70's it was a new thing and a big deal - we used to do experiments that would use feedback from things like respiration rate and skin temperature to reduce anxiety. It's a model that I think of often when I'm trying to correspond with singers in reponse to their request for comments on their auditions. The biofeedback signals didn't make a lot of sense, never telling a coherent story. Crafting a useful response to them really required a sensitivity and attention to the strength and patterns of the signals.

Likewise with what I'm struggling to do every winter with these audition comments. In auditions we hear things without context. Questionable intonation, lack of phrasing, messy diction, bland characterization, troublesome vocal timbre, compressed vocal range... We have no way of knowing from whence these things arise and whether they are root problems or passing symptoms in a developing technique. But so much the better. All we can do is make a note of them and pass the information on. Feedback. It will only make sense within a context of which we are only one tiny part. It's incumbent on the singer to incorporate our signals into the web of information they receive from everyone else who's involved in their training.

One of the biggest lessons I've had to learn is that I need to step away from most of the instincts I developed in years of opera coaching. Then, I would feel the need to create context. To perceive any problem within a larger frame that would help us figure out how to address it. Sometimes a screwy vowel is just that. Sometimes it's so deeply embedded in the technique that it can't be addressed by itself.

Anyway, my job now is different. No matter how difficult, it's important that outsiders like myself are able to respond impartially and somewhat impassively. I have no desire to be cruel in my bluntness (and in these days of American Idol, we all know what that means), but neither is it a good use of anyone's time and energy for me to be simply a cheerleader. We all need those unconditionally supportive people in our lives. But in spite of the fact that my temperament rebels against being the bad guy, it's probably my most important role in this scenario.

So now you see why it's so traumatic for me to write these emails :)

What I Did Last Week
A weekly feature justifying my pre-season existence and sharing my administrative pain.

Foundation Board Meeting: Sucked up a lot of the week, including a full day's preparation. All for a 10-minute presentation. But it was important, and we all know how hard it is to be informative, entertaining, persuasive and succinct all at the same time. Because the Board exists to serve all of Wolf Trap, there are many people on it who are not at all involved in the opera company. So it's not just a matter of sharing information - there's a significant element of proselytizing.

Discovery Series 2007-2008: Finished booking next year's chamber music series!

Contracts! Hard copies ready to go out for the summer season. It always takes so much longer than you think it should to get the paperwork churned out, passed through channels and refined.

Bumps in the Casting Road: Some serious jigsaw puzzle things happening with our summer roaster. I've never seen it in this much flux before.

More Planning for Barns Opera #1 (yes, still nameless for another couple of weeks): What we thought might be a re-mount of a previous production has now turned into a brand new exciting take on this piece.

Closing Out FYA 2006: Took the final look at '06 income and expenditures.

Unions: Informal talks with local rep for one of the unions with which we work.

Congratulations....

To Houston Grand Opera 2007 Concert of Arias Winners Faith Sherman (First Place) and James J. Kee (Second Place and Audience Choice Award). Faith was on our roster both last season and this season, and James joins us this summer.

To WTOC alum Dawn Upshaw and her colleagues for the 2007 Best Opera Recording Grammy for Ainadamar.

And Happy Birthday

To my marvelous husband, my very own Cupid. I believe that today's meteorological event was in response to the cosmic shift caused by his very significant birthday. Can't wait for his second half-century!

But What Do You Do in the Winter?

Ah, the "off-season." As in, "It must be nice to work for a summer opera company. What do you do the rest of the year?"

Truthfully, it still boggles my mind. We are literally scrambling, working through the evenings to meet deadlines. How can there not be enough hours in the day in February?

Planning at The Barns

A few people have called my attention to the fact that I promised that repertoire details would be available in February. Alas, that would be late February. Strictly speaking, February 28... Our season details go public on March 1, and tickets go on sale on March 9. So I figure I can't get in too much trouble if I spill the beans on the 28th.

But for now, I'm speaking in generalities.

The director and scenic designer for Opera #1 were at the theatre today. We were planning a re-mount of a previous design, but after today's exciting discussions, it looks as if it's going to be a completely new production.

Opera #2 has had its challenges with printed materials. We seem to be the only company in this country that's ever done it in original language (French), and finding the complete libretto hasn't been easy. And there was a protracted disgreement between the French publisher and its U.S. distributor about who was allowed to grant the rights to what. I think we've just about got it sorted out.

Planning proceeds apace for Opera #3 (at the Filene Concert), a fabulous concert involving two of the WTOC's "alumni", two recitals with Steven Blier, and a week of improv at the Theatre-in-the-Woods. Details in 3 weeks.

A Moving Target

It's an aberrent year. We've had three changes in our roster in the last six weeks - all after the crazy house of cards that is our roster had been built. 19 singers sharing 56 role assignments over 13 weeks. The infamous grid at left. (Without project and role names, of course. Still muzzled.)

The good news is that the changes have all been the result of important career opportunities for those who withdrew. And, after all, we exist to give our young artists a leg up - a chance to get the experience they need to take the next step in their careers. And these three (all of whom would've returned to Wolf Trap for their second summer) just happened to get some important offers that weren't so very convenient for us....

Not that we haven't ever had to make replacements late in the game before. But it's only happened five times in the last ten years. (Twice due to professional opportunities, twice because of illness, and once due to a true tragedy.)

Audition Feedback

I have a board meeting on Thursday, for which it will take much of the day tomorrow to prepare. But Friday is all about getting those feedback responses out. We've had about 65 inquiries to date, and it takes a good 10 minutes for each one. I've done almost half and will finish the rest by next week if it kills me. (I know... I've said that before....)

Recommendations

A comment from last week's post asked for guidance on those pernicious recommendation letters:

So what exactly makes a good reference, is it the things said, the person who gives the recommendation? How can we as applicants ask for a better recommendation and what can writers do to write a better recommendation?

There's little that the singer/applicant can do to control the quality of a recommendation. Basically, if we as professionals agree to write one, we are agreeing to represent you in a positive light. Some people in the music business have a good business sense and a good way with words, and others don't. We're not going to admit or not admit someone into our audition process based on the writing skills and general effusiveness of their coach/teacher/mentor.

So,

• 1) what can you (the applicant) do?... and
• 2) why do we bother with this?

1) You can ensure that the recommender (is that a word?) knows exactly to whom s/he is writing and what the nature of the program/competition/etc is. The most important thing we want to know is whether or not you are a good fit for this particular opportunity at this particular time in your development. That's why the over-the-top recommendation ("She has the best voice I've ever heard in my career....") is rarely truly helpful. It only lets us know that the writer is dedicated to you and believes wholeheartedly in your potential. And that may say as much about the writer as the object of his/her recommendation.

In particular, for our Studio Artist program, we need to know if applicants are vocally solid enough to spend a summer away from their teachers. We hope to find out that there is a strong work ethic and a sense of curiosity about the business and enthusiasm and ambition to develop a career.

2) Most importantly (and this sounds really stupid, but it's at play, so why not say it?), we want to see if someone respected in the field is willing to go out on a limb for you and simply make the gesture. We also decided to put all of us through this (yes, all of this - you have to solicit, your mentor has to write, and we have to read) because when we get to the point of choosing those final 12 singers from the group of perhaps 20-25 who seem equally capable, there may be some details in these letters that help us round out the impressions we gleaned during those precious 10 minutes of auditioning.

What I Did Last Week - The inauguration of a regular blog feature to follow me through this pre-season period.

I do this ostensibly so that those of you who are interested in arts administration will have an idea of how you might spend your time in a job like mine. But also because I find it inconceivable that I can work hard and fast and still be behind, and I feel better knowing that I've done something.

Wrote all permutations of "blurbs" for the upcoming season. Each performance (opera, concert, recital, etc) needs different types and lengths of "ad" copy and images for different purposes - brochures, calendars, web pages, print ads, radio spots.

Drafted a chorus rehearsal schedule. Chorus auditions for our Filene Center opera and our concert opera performance are taking place in 2 weeks. (Want info? Write wtocauditions@wolftrap.org) By the time of the auditions, a draft summer rehearsal schedule needs to be in place.

2007-2008 - Finished all schedule discussion and negotiations with chamber music artists and their managers for the 07-08 Discovery Season.

Wrote recommendations. Yes, I'm often on the other side of this equation. Submitted recommendations for some of our previous Filene Young Artists for upcoming competitions.

Finalized music and stage management staff configuration.

Re-cast assignments for those artists who vacated our roster.

Isn't it sad that some of us feel a need to validate our existence?

Playing the Piano in Pennsylvania

I'm taking my modest solo piano recital to Pennsylvania this weekend, performing in the community in which I grew up in order to dedicate a refurbished piano in my home church. The memorial funds contributed in honor of my mom allowed this instrument to be installed in the sanctuary.

I've gotten a little cavalier about practicing over the last week, since I seem to have survived the concert in Arlington without too many visible scars. I think I should not be so complacent.