I feel like this column has been a neglected child, but yes, I am still alive here in Chicago. My semester is winding down and it's getting closer and closer to crunch time. My recital is in 20(!) days, and I'm beginning to feel some of the pressure. Now my time and thoughts are filled with putting together ensembles, scheduling rehearsals, reserving rooms, and being on top of all ~70 minutes of music.

On top of that, my midterm is coming up, I have two opera performances, and right after I leave for spring break. Then I come back to Chicago for a weekend, and then it's here: the week of my recital.

I felt a little scared sending out the recital invitation on facebook. Scared because once I click on the 'Create Event' button, it meant that people were going to know about, and that I have no choice now but to actually HAVE THE RECITAL because people are going to be coming.

It felt like the first time I wrote a first and last month's rent/deposit for my first apartment. I wrote 1, added 3 zeros after it before putting the decimal point, and thought, "Damn, that's the most zeros I've ever written after a whole number."

I feel that the program is pretty good. I have two 35 minute halves, and I tried to pay good attention to not only attitude and tempo of songs, but to the text and also to the feel and flow of the sets as a whole. Luckily, I have recordings of most of the songs and made a playlist of my program, and I must say that it does flow pretty good, not only between songs, but between song sets. I start it off with a bang (Handel); have some fun (Mozart); get sappy, shlurpy romantic (Donaudy); add a little 'arrogance' [ala Rick "The Model" Martel"] (Offenbach); get dreamy-eyed (Koechlin); pay tribute to my Filipino ancestors (Rafal); and then end it with another bang (Rossini).

I'll definitely be back a lot sooner than I was last time and give you my pre and post recital thoughts.

Til, then

Makin' Mine Music

~No Tations~