Lift like an Opera Singer: Perform in the Moment

I’m sitting in my Airbnb here in Salt Lake City while I sip on coffee and watch a stream of the Masters National Championship. Since my last post I’ve had 2 concerts and I’ll be competing tomorrow for the Masters Weightlifting event. As soon as I arrive back in Raleigh I’ll be diving back into rehearsals for a concert this following Friday. Typing this out makes me sound busy but I assure you, my Animal Crossing New Horizons island on the Switch is definitely not neglected.

In my last post we discussed a little about preparation for performance and granting yourself permission to succeed. Soon after that I had a little bit of a nervous break down over a solo I was singing for the NC Master Chorale concert with Carter Roland. Everyone kept telling me it was because of the “scary high notes” but I know it was something else. The week leading up to our rehearsal with conductor and composer Roland Carter I was so riddled with anxiety, I honestly told the NCMC director I needed to quit. I didn’t think I could do it. I had serious stage fright. Somehow he talked me off the ledge and I showed up for rehearsal that following Tuesday. Roland was an absolute joy so fortunate for me I had a wonderful opportunity to work with him. Keep in mind, I was singing a solo for a song that HE COMPOSED. This isn’t something that has thrown me before, but I felt I was doing such an inadequate job of performing his work that I would be nothing but disappointment. Well, if he was disappointed he didn’t tell me, and I am grateful for that!

My preparation for this performance was so important. I knew that solo inside and out, I had it memorized (a miracle.. I know!), I worked the difficult passaggio passages and sought to find intention in each word. When Roland stood on the podium to conduct do you know what he told the chorale? “Watch me closely because music is in the moment. So it’s going to be different every time”. A wave of relief and joy washed over me. I COMPLETELY forgot about allowing the music to be in the moment. All my anxiety and fears of failure were becoming more important to me than actually living for the music in the moment. Friends, it is so hard to get to this point. You live in the nitty gritty so your performance outcome can be great. Yet STILL you find faults in your performance and seek to improve it. Yes, there is ALWAYS work to be done. But knowing that this music was going to live and that THAT was out of my control helped free my mind of a lot of worries. Don’t get me wrong, when I stood to sing my solo at rehearsal I still panicked and thought I was going to crumble to the floor. I still did not feel great about my abilities. Nonetheless, I was in it this far so no turning back now.

I’m sure you’re curious to know how the actual performance turned out that following Saturday. I’ll tell you, that Saturday was a very long and exhausting day of morning orchestra rehearsals followed by the actual performance later that afternoon. And my solo was the last piece on the program. When I walked down to the front of the stage to take my soloist seat you’ll never believe me when I tell you I had no nervous energy. It’s like that when performance time actually comes. All the time leading up to a performance is absolutely frightening and filled with anxiety. The whole process of getting to the actually performance is the scary part for me. The few hours before the performance is the absolute WORST in my opinion. There is NOTHING for you to do. The work is done and now you simply wait. The hour before this concert I took a power nap in my car. I literally didn’t know what else to do! I couldn’t afford to let anxieties take over my body again so my only option was to close my eyes and make it all go away. But when I stood up to sing in front of all those people, you’d never know the emotional agony I put myself through that week. See, when you perform IN THE MOMENT everything else goes away. I couldn’t tell you if I thought my vowel placement on this word in a particular phrase was exceptionally lovely or any of that because when you’re in the moment you’re not giving yourself a voice lesson on the side. All I remember was it felt good to sing with intention and as if I had something important to say. Because Roland Carter did not write that music for an elevator. There was something to be said. I don’t know if my high C’s were glorious. All I know is that I meant them. A handful of people told me after the performance that it was really great so you’ll have to take their word for it.

So, as I approach tomorrow’s performance I hope I have a similar experience where any anxieties melt away knowing that I did all the preparation needed to allow myself to lift in the moment.