EPIC

When I think of the word "Epic", several things come to mind; The Eiffel Tower, The Grand Canyon, The Olympics. Those things are epic to me. And then there are the feats in my life I've decided to take on that fall into the category of epic.

When a professional singer decides to do a recital, it's an epic undertaking. It's a solo recital of 45-60 minutes of music that almost always follows a certain program order. And, it's always really hard music. In my case, I'm trying to get into graduate school, so this recital will be recorded and portions of it sent in to various universities where I'm applying in the hopes that they will invite me for a live audition. So, in essence, it has to be perfectly performed.

Naturally, while undertaking all the other epic adventures of this year, I decided to do a recital. After much scrutiny, research, and deliberation, my teacher and I have managed to pick all the songs for this program except for one. Today, it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted as we decided on an order, and finalized the music. There are 15 songs total, including 5 arias and 10 art songs(including 2 duets), in Italian, German, French and English.

There is an immense cost associated with a recital of this magnitude. It will probably cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 by the time I pay for my accompanist(who is worth her weight in gold. Luckily she's skinny!), a venue, additional instrumentalists(violinist, harsichordist, oboist), a dress or two, and food for the reception afterwards. But, it's been 4 years since I've done a recital, and this is a major step towards my future as a singing teacher and performer. Plus, if it gets me into grad school, it's a total investment.

I have 12 weeks to learn 10 songs while running a business, continuing to lose weight, and training for a marathon. I think that qualifies as epic.