"Magic"

Boy has it been another busy month! It's a good thing I stay so busy or else I wouldn't have anything good to write about ;)

First, I want to begin by telling you about my second professional gig I had here in the city. I was privileged to sing again with Essential Voices USA (check us out: www.essentialvoicesusa.com). This concert was the Leonard Bernstein Celebration at Symphony Space, commemorating the 20th anniversary of Bernstein's death and the release of a book of photography of Bernstein by a man named Steve Sherman. Bernstein was the composer of West Side Story, Candide, and other amazing pieces of music. We sang two pieces, the Chichester Psalms and "Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide. Both pieces were just gorgeous and very moving to sing. Chichester Psalms is actually in Hebrew and that was the first time I've ever sung in Hebrew. At BGHS and WKU, I've sung many pieces in Italian, German, Spanish, French, and even African, so extending my repertoire to another language was really exciting (challenging, but exciting)! And "Make Our Garden Grow" is the finale in Candide and was just so moving to perform. It was one of those pieces that just put chills all over your body when you sing it! This concert, as was the Lerner and Loewe concert in April, was one of the phenomenal musical moments of my life that I will never forget. The thrill that I get just getting to perform in this city is so magical. I'm very much looking forward to my next concert (at Carnegie Hall) next week!

A fun opportunity I've been given was getting to record vocal sweetener and voice overs for RWS. Sweetener is background vocals and harmonies on tracks that you would hear in a theme park show. The sweeteners and voice overs I recorded were for our Holiday shows that are going to different malls all around the country! It was so fun to do! I went with Robbie to the studio of the guys that do all our music (Audio Workshop) and wore the headphones and had the big mic to sing into...the real deal ;) ( And hopefully I'll be getting to do that a lot more!!!) So anyways, my voice will be heard in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Florida! Very pumped that I get to add this to my resume:)

Another fun thing I got to do with RWS was choreograph a number for one of our Holiday shows, "Rudolph the Great and Friends." It is a super cute magic show starring Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and two festive elves, Ta and Da. As a team building exercise for the office, everyone got to choreograph a number that involved a magic trick. It as so exciting to be doing hands-on creative work for the company and we ended up producing a really great product. I actually just came back from the mall in Paramus, NJ where our show just performed. We all went and got to watch our show come to life and it looked wonderful. I am now in such the Christmas mood! I never would listen Christmas music until Thanksgiving night, but we've been dealing with Christmas since August haha! Fortunately, I'm not Christmased out, I'm just really ready for it!

So literally and figuratively, it's been a magical month and I know with NYC getting into the holiday season, it will continue to get even more magical:)