Sunday, October 5, 2014
Taking Peggy’s advice, I didn’t sing much the last few days before flying to Kansas for Rosh Hashanah. My flight was late getting in to Wichita and I was exhausted by the time I finally got over to Tony’s apartment for our rehearsal. I had gotten into a conversation with the interesting woman sitting next to me on the plane while our flight was delayed in Chicago. Halfway through the flight I realized I shouldn’t be talking at all, let alone over noise. Continue reading
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sataloff’s office has moved from Pine to Broad Street. It is actually much faster and more convenient for me to just zip off the highway and into the numerous parking lots right near the Drexel University Building. The waiting room has all the maroon leather couches from the Pine Street office, but Peggy and Bridget have more spacious studios with wonderful views of the downtown sky line. Today I saw Bridget and Peggy for an hour each, back to back. Maybe that was a mistake. Continue reading
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Ireland 2014
Michael will be taking the PU Orchestra on tour to Ireland in January, so we decided to go scout out some performance venues while having a bit of a vacation too. We flew into Dublin, stayed three nights at a lovely small hotel right off the bustling Nassau Street across from Trinity College. We saw the book of Kells, the famous library, and took the tour at the Jamison Whisky factory. We also managed to catch some fun music in various pubs in Temple Bar – Continue reading
Saturday, July 12, 2014
The other big project that has been going on this winter is the Singing Through Menopause Survey. On Sataloff’s recommendation, I got the survey approved by the Princeton Institutional Review Board and enlisted the help of the Princeton Survey Research Center. Everyone I worked with in both offices was wonderful. After getting feedback from a number of my voice teacher colleagues, I launched the online survey in early March – hard to believe with everything else that was going on then!!! Continue reading
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
I finally decided to make an appointment to see Peggy Baroody again, the singing voice specialist in Sataloff’s office. School is over, the estate work has settled down, I have some more time and energy to devote to this. I have been pretty faithful to the low acid diet since January, and I have been doing the few exercises I got from Peggy and the speech pathologist on that first visit. Continue reading
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Thankfully, this trip was already planned long ago. Boy did we need to be on a beach in Puerto Rico for Spring Break! I had learned about the small cottage in the low key west coast town of Rincon from my ISPP buddy Jane. It was sort of a project to get there – renting a car and driving almost 4 hours in Saturday afternoon traffic from San Juan to Rincon. Continue reading
Sunday, March 1, 2014
I’m writing this much later, luckily with the perspective of some distance, but for whatever reason, I thought I should document this part of the journey. January 29, I finally had my long awaited appointment in Philadelphia with Dr. Sataloff, famous ENT and healer of many singers. I figured I might as well get scoped by the best and see what was going on with my chords. Continue reading
Sunday, October 6, 2013
This is the first time that a major Katzenjammer reunion has been held outside of the regular Princeton Reunions festivities. Since graduating in 1982, I have made appearances at most of my major reunions every five years on the ’2’s and ‘7s. The Katz events (SATB a cappella singing group for those who don’t know) are held the next year on the ‘3’s and ‘8’s resulting in two years in a row of too much P’ton Hooplah. Continue reading
Sunday, September 15, 2013
The Holidays were very early this year, for my 19th year going to Wichita as the “rent-a-cantor” at Congregation Emanu-El. Has it really been 19 years!!!??? The weather was beautiful for Rosh Hashanah as I flew out of a deserted Newark airport on Labor Day. Because of various scheduling issues involving Tony the pianist and the local High School musical, we rehearsed, if you can call it rehearsing, a day early. Continue reading
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Michael and I are standing in front of Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, Australia, with Mimmi Fulmer on the last day of the 8th International Congress of Voice Teachers. More than a year ago, I had been asked to contribute a chapter on ornamenting Classical and Bel Canto arias to a book edited by Scott Harrison, who teaches at the Queensland Conservatorium. He was also involved with hosting the conference, and he suggested that I give a talk on the material from the chapter. Continue reading