Spring!

So, there are actually quite a few unfinished posts between the last one and this one. But unpublished and in rather sketchy form... mostly written during the times when internet wasn't working in the house. I'll get them up eventually.

Two big updates, though:

1. I successfully sang my final MMus

recital at RAM last Friday. Still waiting to hear back on my mark (awful singing to a room with

three people scribbling at a table at the back of it), but on the whole felt good about my performance. Got to sing some music that I really love to some people who I care a lot about (my parents even flew out from NJ!), and my teacher and coach were happy. Thus, I count it as a success even if my mark doesn't end up reflecting it. Never could have sang most of this stuff when I first arrived here two years ago, and so to do ALL of it in one programme, successfully, feels pretty good. Just for the music geeks amongst you, this was the programme:

• Handel 'Non disperar chi sa' from Giulio Cesare
• Berg Sieben Fruhe Lieder
• Bizet 'Me voila seule ... Comme autrefois' from Les pecheurs de perles
• Previn Three Dickinson Songs
• Barber Op. 10 James Joyce songs

Took a minute and a half break after the Berg, otherwise straight through for just under 45 minutes. And even after months of prep on this stuff, I still love the repertoire. Good sign I'm doing the right thing with my life.

For the other big news...

2. I'm moving to Chicago at the beginning of September! Happy to announce that after my crazy weeks of US auditions back in February (I'll post that as-yet-unpublished blog post at some point), I've accepted a place at the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University, to study opera performance for the next two y

ears. Very, very excited to join their programme and to get to know the music scene and general creative life of the city of Chicago. Of course, get extremely teary every time I think about what and who I'm leaving in London, but thankfully there are planes that let me come back as often as I can afford (assuming lack of volcanic activity...)

So, those are the major updates. I could also write about an amazing two-week-long exchange with students from RAM and the Blair School of Music in Nashville (another unfinished post), the frustrations of London's inability to deal with snow in January, my last opera scene, and my debut as a soloist with the All Souls Orchestra... but those things will wait for now. Getting nostalgic and reflective these days as I near ends of things and look forward to next steps, so I'm sure those thoughts will get on here before too much longer.

For now, I'll leave you with a pair of photos from this past weekend. To celebrate the successful recital and my parents' trip to the UK (the only time I've had both of them here at the same time since I moved!), we went on a road trip. These pictures are from Sunday, with two of the stops in the trip: Canterbury Cathedral and the white cliffs of Dover. Enjoy.

Ceiling above Altar, Canterbury Cathedral

Break in the clouds, Dover cliffs