the festival

So Monday & Tuesday I spent the mornings in Drumheller, listening to many singers and singing 3 songs myself at the music festival. (We were at this lovely United church with stained glass windows. :)) Both days everything was really delayed, but thankfully I got back just in time for my 1:00 meeting on Tues. The adjudicator was a lady from U of A who actually taught a couple of the voice teachers who taught at Prairie! :) That was funny. We didn't appreciate her too much as an adjudicator though because she was very vague most of the time, not giving specific suggestions or things to work on. Sometimes she did work with people like a masterclass, but mostly picked one random thing to tell you (even if there was lots of stuff people should work on!). She was very into dynamic variety and resonance. :)

I was soooo nervous on my first song, oh my word! It wasn't too horrible-sounding though, I guess, because I got an 85% and 1st place ... but I was the only one in that class. :) The next one I thought went better (I was less nervous for sure), but I got 84% instead of higher. She commented on a few French pronunciation errors and singing with resonance and dynamic variety. I still got 1st though and beat the 2 girls I was with (fellow students). Tuesday's song I thought went quite well, and to begin with I was not nervous at all. After I was up there though, my heart started pounding. I forgot an entry at one point and switched up some rhythms in another phrase, but nothing too obvious and she didn't comment on it. She liked that one lots I guess, and gave me 86%. Again I got 1st place and beat the 3 girls I was with! That was unexpected. I felt kinda bad because they're all voice majors and some have been singing way longer than me!! :( But she did say we were all pretty much the same and she wanted to give us all the same mark. :) I was happy with it myself though because I purposely tried to work on the things she'd mentioned the day before, and I think I succeeded.

Thanks for praying. I was nervous but still I managed to do pretty well, breathe well, focus, and by the last song especially, get a bit more used to performing and looking around at the audience! :) It's weird for me to have to think about being expressive in this way; it's so different from piano! So it was a good learning experience in several ways.

Tonight is the finale where they give out awards and trophies. I won't be going, so I guess I'll find out later if I got anything. :)