My graduation recital is complete, and so is my degree

It has now been one week since my graduation recital, and I have been able to collect some of my thoughts about what has happened.

This recital began its construction over a year ago when deciding what repertoire to work on and chose over the summer into my fourth year. Now, I feel like I am in a grieving process of the last four years and with all of this music that I have spent so much time with and so much passion curating.

And that is one thing for sure that I am proud of is my program. Love is a reflection of the human experience of life, and I wanted my sets to take us through all of the different journeys of these aspects of love. This was one of the most complimented things in feedback from my peers and audience members; that I created a great program that wasso attention-grabbing and holding and that was able to evoke these emotions of love. That is what performing is to me; soul connections that defy ordinary words.

That being said, now, I have all of this music in me that I don't know what to do with, until my opera coach Kate Carver said to me, "Now it is in your body, you are like a library storing it, making you a better musician." And those words made me tear up because she's right, not only to the fact of knowing repertoire but through the journey it took me to learn it, in the process, making me better.

This recital is probably the most present I have felt in the music while performing, which is something that I find challenging to conjure until the adrenaline kicks in when I step onto the stage for the first time. I could tell I was getting a bit tired by the end of it, but my body and mind didn't feel that way, as long as I was singing the music and telling the story through the text. Quality of character and acting tend to be a compliment I receive which surprises me because I generally feel quite uneasy about that until stage adrenaline grasps it for me. I am interested to explore with my learning process through my next few projects.

The second set of the recital was Rossini's La regata venziana of which I have been slowly working on for the last year and a half, learning the third piece in the third year. This was exciting to perform because it is not a commonly known piece and it has been pushing me technically and had me singing at a level of difficulty I wouldn't normally with art song, or in style for the last four years of my repertoire. Many of my peers commented on how fun it was but also how they could hear some amazing developments in my voice from Rossini's complexities. This I find interesting as I have recently received suggestions for bel canto repertoire heading into my Opera Diploma next fall, and I am interested to see how that develops.

I believe this has also been a challenging process of loss for me because this recital was the final event of the last four years I have spent studying with Jennie Such. I met Jennie during COVID online for a trial lesson in June 2020, and I immediately knew that we were a match. Jennie and I have a close relationship and outside of her being my voice instructor, I know I can call her my friend. She was always there to support me; she even offered me a job teaching with her where we worked together for a year. I got to my last lesson with her, not even realizing it because I was so used to routine and walking in and out of that studio. Thankfully, I still had some more Group Technique and Studio Classes that extended those final days. The last four years she supported me through school, jobs, auditions, my personal life, and it's all flown by. I've grown so much with her; I don't really have the correct words to properly articulate my gratitude for our relationship and what she has done for me.

My journey at Laurier is not over though. Knowing I am returning in the fall has made some of the finality of this degree not seem so final. I will still be around many of the same people, in the same building, studying with most of the same instructors and professors, but now as I sit at my desk and look at my empty calendar that has no classes scheduled for next week; I almost don't know what to do with myself. Sing, of course, but the lack of my weekly routine has left me at a loss for words that I can only describe as standing at the threshold of a new chapter, humming melodies of the past.