Recital @ MindSay

once upon a time, there was nothing i loved more than singing. that time extends to now, honestly, but since then an injury broke both my voice and my heart. every now and again i indulge my musical longing; it gives me the same thrill as drunk-texting an ex. last spring i gave a recital and tonight i gave into my urge to listen to it:


http://www.firsttune.com/upload/chelsea.html

http://www.firsttune.com/upload/Extase.mp3

of course, most of it makes me self-critical and angry. i'd be no artist if i actually liked what i created. however, give "extase" a close listen. something about that piece speaks directly to my heart. it's like i wasn't even singing it. the piece just landed before my lips for me to blow out into an audience and a live recording.

like all of the best music, i still can't figure out what it really means.

Well... I had to fight with YouTube all day (and well into the night, as you can see), but I finally got the video of my last solo from my recital uploaded and working properly.  Unfortunately, you can't upload a video longer than 10 minutes, so I had to cut it into two chunks.  In any case, I hope you enjoy it.  This is "Prism Rhapsody" by Keiko Abe.  Dr. Caroline Salido Richardson is accompanying.

And here we have another clip... lol.  Hopefully you guys don't find this completely boring and awful.  This is "XL Plus One" - it uses 41 different instruments.  Needless to say... putting this together was a lot of work!

Here's a video from my recital this past weekend... I'm hoping to put up clips of my other pieces eventually, as well... but the process of converting and editing is a little slow.  In any case, this is "Con-Fusion".  The middle third or so is an improvised cadenza.  Enjoy!

Today is an easy day.  Rachel and I passed our recital hearing yesterday afternoon, and considering that very nearly everything I've done in the last few weeks has been in preparation for it, that feels pretty good.  Today I slept in (missing a class in the process... oops).  Today I'm NOT practicing anything.  Today is just a day to sit back and enjoy how far I've come, before I have to push off on the next leg of the journey tomorrow.  I think a day like this is critical for everyone from time to time...

More later... after all, I should have time to write