CD Launch - Free wine!

If you are in Toronto on Wednesday night and want to mix wine, opera and some laughs, check out the CD Launch of Fallis and Tiefenbach: More or Less Live @ the Gould







The details:

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
5pm - 7pm
Lobby of Glenn Gould Studio
250 Front Street West
CBC Broadcasting Centre
First 100 people get free glass of wine!
Come and hear "bits" at 5:45pm.

I had the good fortune of not only being in the audience for the recording but also being part of the P&T Choral ...alas the song Nebraska will forever be stuck in my head.

Check out Mary Lou's new website and have a glass of wine for me!

Canadian Opera More or Less Live?

Canadian singer and comedienne extraordinaire Mary Lou Fallis and her pianist side-kick Peter Tiefenbach have recently released their newest hilarity Mary Lou Fallis & Peter Tiefenbach more of less LIFE at the GOULD.

A review of Mary Lou's past Prima Donna shows plus new works (!) I laughed until I cried - both in the audience last January when it was taped and recently while driving home from Toronto (I don't recommend driving while listening - there should be a warning with this CD!).

The successor to the late, great Anna Russell, Mary Lou and Peter are unstoppable with original tunes like "I've Got Faust Under My Skin" (a combination of Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade and the standard I've got you under my skin), "Why isn't Love like it is in the Opera?", "Nebraska!!" (Oklahoma?) and my personal favourite "Bingo Night in Berlin" (sung in the belt-opera style of Kurt Weill).

You can get more information about this CD or booking this show for your event at Dean Artists Management.

Teaching an old dog new tricks...

I have spent the morning on the computer doing all the computer-related things that one does to manage their lives - Blogging, emailing students, sending thank you notes for studio referrals, being in touch with colleagues, uploading a video to my YouTube channel and of course, Facebooking. Finally after looking at the clock and realizing my arms were locked into one position, I decided to head outside with my coffee to enjoy this beautiful Prince Edward County weather!

Now normally Iwould sit at the front of my house but today, I took my chair over to the deck that served as a "stage" for our annual outdoor concert this summer (Lakestock '09) and sat there instead. What a difference a new view can make! The lake out front looked different, I got new ideas for my gardens (I should really cut the grass!) and then I started to think singing.

It got me thinking that we can get stuck repeating old patterns and wondering why nothing changes. The same goes with developing and managing vocal technique and repertoire. Yesterday I had a lesson with my mentor Mary Lou Fallis in Toronto. She kept saying to me "think the pitch BEFORE you sing". "But I am" I thought...but really, I was breathing, setting a vowel then pitching it. No wonder the onsets were out of balance! Once I started to make that realization, things started to fall into place.

So back to my deck today...I decided to start singing right out there in the sunshine with the breeze blowing the flag and the fishermen going by. A new space, a new idea and voila, some new sounds. Added to that, the lack of feedback when you sing outside, made it a real kinaesthetic singing sensation and took me to a different place where I could assess things and get NEW and DIFFERENT results.

The point? Find a new space, get a new set of ears (teacher, coach, friend), try something new and you might be surprised by the results. You know what they say about old dogs....prove them wrong! And NOW is the time to do it!