Day 491 and 492: Dr. Tom Albert

If you have read the majority of my blog posts, or have ever heard me talk about the school in person, you have heard me talk about Dr. Thomas Albert. He is the God figure of the school. He knows everything. He has an explanation for everything. He is as wise as an owl mainly because of his age. However, he acts as young and full of life as the rest of us.

Unfortunately, after two years he has announced his retirement. Even though I am devastated and will go into a serious time of grief and mourning after he leaves, he deserves this retirement. The end of this year will mark 42 years for him. Luckily, he will still be involved with SSMT as Artistic Director and Musical Director for at least one of its shows.

To acknowledge Dr. Albert, we are doing some of his favorite musicals including She Loves Me. Also, next summer we are doing another one of his favorites that I can't reveal yet. To work on musicals with a musical director that has such a passion for those shows in particular is such a thrill. Here's to Dr. Albert.

Day 490: The Fabulous Five

Finally, if you take all of the things I've said over the past four blog posts you will reach the end conclusion about the students learning in the musical theater leadership programs here. As a group, we make up the fabulous five. The weekend blog will top off the trend of important people I'm involved with here making the super six, but below is a photo of the fab five since we could never get a photo of the super six for this weekend's post.

Day 489: John

We have another graduate student here this year named John Clanton. I think he's here for his doctorate. However, if that's true, nobody knows what it's for. For all I know, he is really here for his Master's in Musical Theatre Conducting like Cory. No matter what the reason he's here, I'm thrilled he is. He has so many credits and has met so many incredible people including the Queen of England and President George Bush. He got those opportunities because he conducted one of the bands associated with the U.S. Military. He is the assistant musical director for She Loves Me and an overall joy to work with and be around.

Day 488: The Other Golden Girls

If you combine my two previous blog posts, you will get a set of four fabulous people. Cory, Olivia, Catherine, and I refer to ourselves as The Golden Girls. We even have which character we are the most like. Catherine is Dorothy, I'm Sophia, Olivia is Rose, and Cory, without question, is Blanche. Also, we have a group text message whenever we need to contact all of us and we entitle the group message contact, The Golden Girls. Yes, this blog is short, but it's very amusing.

Day 487: Cory

I'm not sure if I have talked about Matthew J. Pool in my blog before. He is an alumnus of SU now because in May he graduated with a Masters in Musical Theater Conducting. To become the new Matthew, we received a new student this semester in that program. His name is Cory Davis. He's very over the top, wild, and quite eccentric. He's the complete opposite of Matthew, but there is something special about him. I'm getting used to him, but I can tell we will be good friends, especially if he stops talking about Beyoncé all the time. Here's a photo of us at Guerilla Theater.

Day 486: The Triumvirate

This year I have the great privilege of welcoming in two new MTAs. For those of you who haven't heard me use that acronym, it stands for Musical Theater Accompanying and therefore the people that are in that major. Humbly speaking, we rule the school and make up the accompanying "holy trinity." We are the triumvirate (even though they are both females and thus according to Dr. Albert doesn't count as one). They are so talented and I love working with them and guiding them into the world of musical theater accompanying with me. Also, they can help balance all of my work. Did I mention that I love it here?

Day 484 and 485: Food Porn

Before you start getting offended or concerned by the title of this blog, you must know that the "food porn" phrase is a very common hashtag and categorical idea of food photography. For those of you who know anything about me, you know that I eat out quite a bit. From waffle house to Perkins to Outback or to Chilis, I am very observant and particular when it comes to the dining experience. I'm especially determined to be served food that looks good enough for me to eat it. I probably get this fondness of food presentation because I watch a lot of Food Network cooking and competition shows. Now, if I ever go to a restaurant and I see a beautiful plate of food, I have to take a photo. Here are some of the delicious meals I've eaten recently.

Day 483: Jazz Piano

Every Friday I have a new type of applied lesson this semester. The title should make it very clear that I'm referring to jazz piano. It's less my style than voice or classical piano, but the conservatory wants to make sure that they include every facet, that could be in my career, as a part of my curriculum. With each week of jazz piano lessons, my mind is blown by the improv geniuses that make up the art of jazz. I have learned so much, and it's only been three or four lessons. My professor, Dr. Larson, has me learning how to read lead sheets that would be found in a real book. He is also teaching me the basics of jazz voice leading and jazz improv. He says all of the things he will teach me during my four semesters of jazz piano. It seems impossible to me, but I'm going to trust my professor and allow myself to learn and appreciate the style of jazz.

Day 482: The Thing

There are several things that make a dorm room truly special, but the thing that means the most to me in my room is the thing that I don't know what it's called. When I come in with my keys, my wallet, change, receipts, etc. I have the perfect thing to hold it all. I used to come in and scatter my necessary items on my desk in a cluttered fashion, but that's no longer the case. My Papa B had a container that has compartments for each item. It's a genius device that I'm thrilled to have as a way to remember him in an organized manner.

Day 481: Guerrilla Theater

Another event that happened last Friday was the first Guerrilla Theater. It is a variety show that is sponsored by Alpha Psi Omega (APO, the Greek Co-ed Theater based service organization on campus). People sign up to perform different acts that range from solos, duets, scenes, poetry reading, dancing, storytelling, and anything else you could think up. Students from the entire conservatory show up at 11 PM to cheer at the top of their lungs with encouragement and support. The craziest act that happened at this first Guerrilla Theater was the reading of a story that one of the APO members wrote in second grade. It sounds dumb, but it was hilarious. After a long day, you think we would be exhausted, but we love it so much that we do more during late night hours performing for our friends. I think I've said it before, but I LOVE IT HERE!

Day 480: Organ Concert

So many things happened this past weekend that it will take a few extra blog posts to write about them all. On Friday evening, I attended my first classical organ concert. The closest thing I can compare it to is watching The Joy of Music with Diane Bish but with live sound. The recital was featuring a guest artist from Belgium and was in the Goodson Chapel/Recital Hall. Like many chapels, the organ is in the balcony, almost in a separate chamber. Pipes emerge from all sides of the chapel and provides great sound. Due to this setup, the audience had to sit on the ground level and a live streaming camera showed the organist on two TV screens but the sound was all around you. The organ isn't the best and doesn't have the fullest or wide varying sound but it is perfect for Baroque music. The artist was performing music that dated before Bach and spanning through time to Bach. It was entitled Orpheus and his Pupils. While it wasn't my favorite type of music, the playing was very solid and a new experience for me. I get so many opportunities to broaden my musical horizons. I LOVE IT HERE.

Day 479: The Clerks

I have already talked about our incredible lead for the fall musical She Loves Me, but this show is filled with principals. All of the main characters are employees of the show's Parfumerie. They have the coolest names: Arpad Lazlo, Latislov Sipos, Georg Nowack, Amalia Balash, Ilona Ritter, Stephen Kodaly, and Mr. Maraczek. All the actors and actresses that play these roles are just as talented as our two leads. They truly make up an amazing cast of clerks and it's thrilling to work with them and see them work every night.

Day 477 and 478: The Golden Girls

For those of you who don't know, my favorite TV show is The Golden Girls. Well, I guess I should be more specific and say that my favorite comedy show is The Golden Girls. My favorite drama is Grey's Anatomy, but I digress (only a fan of The Golden Girls will get that). Anyway, this weekend (the officially date is technically Monday Sept. 14) is the 30th Anniversary of the television series. The show is timeless. I own all the seasons on DVD and claim myself as the ultimate fan. I can quote several episodes, lines, jokes, etc. My favorite character is Sophia. All four ladies just feel like an extra group of grandmas to me. I don't know what the one key element is that makes it such an iconic but it doesn't matter because it's truly a golden gem and will always remind us of the importance of friendship. So with that, thank you for being a friend.

Day 476: The Choreography

As students at Shenandoah Conservatory, we are given so many opportunities, and if we are interested in a leadership challenge, we are usually granted the chance to creatively shine. One of my best friends here is Emily Rafala. She was a part of the band during Marat/Sade, worked with me during SSMT, uses me as her accompanist, and now she is the choreographer for She Loves Me. She is doing a terrific job, but she's not messing around. She doesn't make simple dances and movement just because she's a student; she expects fast paced, energetic motion and does an outstanding job pulling the best work from the company. While there's not much dancing in the show, she takes the little there is and amplifies it leaps and bounds. There's one big number where people dance in a quiet cafe. They dance more and faster in that number than the Russian Dance of The Nutcracker. I'm so proud to be among such talented people. I love it here!

Day 475: Set the Stage

Tonight, the conservatory hosted a banquet entitled setting the stage. The OBT stage was set to the nines with a beautiful evening cafe look. There were great appetizers and an open bar. All of the big wheel faculty attended to promote their departments to sponsoring patrons. We were also giving sneak peeks through speeches or performances of what was going to be included in this year's conservatory performs season. We performed a medley of songs from She Loves Me. A jazz piano major played background music and a fine piano masters student played the Chopin Revolutionary Étude. It was an exquisite evening and a lovely night.

Day 474: The Leads

You can't have a show without two talented people in the leading roles. We have two incredible seniors playing our leading lady and our leading man. They are the perfect she and me for our musical She Loves Me. Their acting and singing is just impeccable. I love being at a school with such incredible performers.

Day 473: The Human Bicycle

Now, in reading the title of this, you are probably thinking that this is one of the random posts I was talking about, but this is actually relevant to the rehearsal process.

We are doing a very avant-garde version of She Loves Me. It is a very minimalist production. There isn't much of a set and what there is of a set, ensemble actors enhance the set by becoming inanimate objects such as doors, hat stands, and you guessed it bicycles.

The top of the show has the shop's errand boy ride onstage on a bicycle. Because of the concept of our production and our brilliant movement director, we were able to turn people into the bike, and then after he gets off the bike, the bike group morph back into people who are window shopping at the store.

This human bike establishes right from the start that this isn't going to be your typical version of She Loves Me. Instead, it will be a stripped down version that really allows the story to come to life in its raw state of innocent truth.

So much creative genius is involved in this production, that all I can say is I LOVE IT HERE!!!

Day 472: Labor Day

In addition to this being labor day, it was the serious blog make-up day. I had gotten about three weeks behind in my blog and was determined to catch up. I had to write from hobbies all the way to back to school's first week. Labor day is supposed to be a day off for everyone, but I used it to do the work that I had gotten too busy to do. I know that catching it all up in one day makes it confusing because you are't sure what day actually happens on what date but most of my posts it doesn't really matter because they are more thoughts of the day and not necessarily what happened that specific day.  However, if you are interested in knowing what date the blog happens, you can use landmarks like this. Sadly, I swore up and down that I wouldn't get behind again, but as I type this I'm updating an entire week. Oh well, at least I'm not waiting till next Labor Day to update it.

Day 470 and 471: Back to Rehearsal

In addition to the thousands of other things that started this past week, rehearsals for the fall musical began. If you haven't read in previous blog posts, our fall musical is She Loves Me. I will spend the next few blogs talking about various aspects of the production. So this weekend post is basically an introduction to that. With each day I will post a rehearsal photo of that aspect. It also will be interrupted occasionally by various posts that seem about as random as the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And with that, on with the blog.

Day 469: The First Week

I don't know what it was, but today was just a really great day. Today, I finished my first week of school and it was the best first week of school that I've ever had. I can't pinpoint what was so incredible about it, nor can I pinpoint why today feels so extraordinarily special. Honestly, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it was a great day and a great week. And to that I quote my Papa B. "This is good."