Messiah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I haven't blogged in months. But it's whatever. So, last night was The Orchestra of Southern Utah and the Southern Utah Chorale's first performance of the Handel's Messiah. (We perform again tonight at 7:30. It's free. You should come!!) I am one of the lucky ones and have the opportunity to perform a solo. I am singing the Angel Recitatives. I love them! They fit perfectly in my voice and they are all about the angels coming to the shepherds and telling them about Christ's birth.

I love the Messiah. The music is beautiful and tells the most beautiful story, of Christ's life on earth. Whenever I sing, either in the chorus or as a soloist in the Messiah I can't help but feel the spirit and I know everyone else feels the same. Our conductor, Dr. Sun, has such a love and passion for this piece of work. It is so much fun singing for him. Everything he is feeling comes beaming out of his whole body as he conducts. His favorite piece is For Unto Us a Child is Born. He's never told me this but I know it is. The way he conducts it is just beautiful and I can't help but smile. They video taped last night's performance, I hope they got some footage of him conducting that piece. It HAS to go in the DVD. Everyone should have the opportunity to see his joy.

Anyway. I just so blessed and am so grateful for the talents my Heavenly Father has blessed me with. I love singing and I love sharing beautiful music with others.

My newest projects

I've been really bored lately, so I've decided that I need to do something productive with my time rather than sit and watch tv shows all day long. So now I watch tv shows and make things.

We are having Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house this year so I asked my aunt if I could make some decorations for our tables. Everyone usually does a good job at making our Thanksgiving tables look cute and pretty but I REALLY needed something to do or else I was going to go crazy. She said that she was fine with it as long as I made something for her. haha.

These are what I have so far....

These are going to be table runners. Neither one of them are done yet. I made them out of burlap. I saw a lot of really cute table runners made from burlap on pinterest so I decided to try it. The top one is going to have another line of color. The first three are different kinds of ribbons (you can't really tell from the picture because I took it with my phone but just trust me) I think I'm going to use ric-rac on the fourth line. The bottom one is going to have lace sewed on to the other side as well. I just ran out of the lace. They are both about 4 yards long to fit the length of the table and hopefully plus some so they can hang over the edges.

I made these out of baby blocks. I just painted over the little pictures that were painted on the blocks.

I'm a big girl now.

I did it. I finally did it. I had my first, real, big girl audition for something other than school. I auditioned for the Utah Lyric Opera yesterday. It was terrifying at first but then once I was actually in the room auditioning it wasn't that bad. If felt like I as at NATS all over again just without all of my friends watching and cheering silently for me behind the judges.

To audition for ULO you have to send in a resume and head shot and then after that they will invite those that they want to hear sing to audition. I kind of knew that it was probably a long shot for me to even get an audition since the only experience I have is from high school and undergrad but I applied anyway. How else am I going to build a resume? I thought that they were going to let people know if they got an audition by September 7th so the closer it got to the 7th and I hadn't hear anything I just convinced myself that this is how it works in this business. Sometimes you get an audition and sometimes you don't. So, I wasn't too torn apart about it. There will be other roles and other auditions I can try for. Then to my surprise, on September 11th I got an email saying that they would like to invite me to come and audition for them on Friday, September 14th!! I only had 4 days to prepare for this audition! I was freaking out. (Seriously, I was basically hyperventilating. Ask Sadie.) I may have even cried a little because I was so "excited and scared" (name that musical! :)) After I had composed myself a bit I called my mom and told her and she congratulated me and then offered to drive me to Provo for the audition. (Oh yeah, did I forget to tell you that the audition was in Provo? Well, it was.) I told her that I would love it if she would go with me. Then after I got off the phone with her I sent a text to the rest of my family and friends telling them my good news. I then decided that I needed to decide what to sing. Please be aware that I hadn't seriously sung since my Senior Recital in April. That was a really long time ago. My voice needed way more time than 4 days to get ready for an audition, but that was all the time I had. So, I jumped in the shower, got dressed, and headed over to the music building to talk to Professor Modesitt about what I should sing.  I got to her office and luckily she was still there. I told her about my audition and we decided that I would prepare So anch'io la virtu magica  from Don Pasquale and Steal Me. Sweet Thief from The Old Maid and The Thief. She then offered to give me a lesson, so we decided that I would have a lesson on Friday at 1:00 right before I was to head off to Provo.

The next few days I practiced my little heart out. Well as much as I could anyway. Since I hadn't sung since my recital my voice was not ready to sing for more than an hour at a time. So I would sing for an hour and then take a break and study the translations or take another look at the Italian to make sure I was saying it all right. Then I would practice some more.


Finally, Friday came. My lesson was scheduled for 1:00 pm and Professor Modesitt wanted me to come warmed up. So I made my way over to the music building at about 11:45 so I would have time to organize my music and then give myself plenty of time to warm up. By the time I was plenty warm it was about 12:40 so I waited around for my lesson with Karyn in the music office and we watched a little bit of The Old Maid and The Thief. Then I went in for my lesson. The lesson went great. I sang everything well and she only had to correct me on a few of my Italian words, which is super good for me because I am AWFUL when it comes to pronouncing foreign languages. I definitely don't have the gift of tongues. But I can fake it alright. After my lesson Professor Modesitt was very sweet and told me that I would do well and that I needed to keep her updated on what happens. (Which means a lot coming from her. She doesn't give compliments out unless she really means them.) Now, I was feeling pretty good! I was going to get to Provo and knock their socks off. Now, I just had to wait for my mom and Clancy to get to Cedar City so that we could all ride together to Provo.

Once my mom and Clancy made it to Cedar, they dropped off a few boxes of food for Sadie and I, we grabbed my things and headed on our way. The drive there wasn't too bad. I wished it could have only been 2 hours rather than 3 because that 3rd hour seems to last for eternity. I was also a little nervous that I wasn't going to be able to find the room that the auditions were in because the HFAC (the fine arts building at BYU) is literally a maze. Luckily, my friend, Geneil is a grad student at BYU and she practically lives in the HFAC so she knew where the room was. She sent me a text with the directions. We must have either done something right or my mom was driving really fast because we weren't planning on getting to Provo until about 6:00 but we got there at 5:30! It was perfect because my audition time was 6:27. (Random, I know.) I had plenty of time to find the stupid room, change my clothes, and warm up. Right after we arrived at BYU we looked for the room first. We found it with no problem. Then my mom and Clancy went to the bookstore and left me to get ready for the audition and to DO the actual audition. I then needed to change my clothes. (I wore a t-shirt and jeans to ride in the car. That is definitely not kosher for an audition.) So I wandered over to the main part of the HFAC to find a bathroom. As I was walking towards the bathroom on the top floor I glanced down into the open area of the main floor and who did I see sitting on a bench? None other than Geneil Perkins herself. It registered in my head that it was Geneil but it took me a second to actually realized that IT WAS GENEIL! She sang my name, of course, and I ran down to see her. We chatted for a little while and then she showed me to a bathroom and a drinking fountain on that floor. I then changed my clothes and headed for the audition space again. Geneil had told me where the practice rooms were but they were on the bottom floor and the audition room was on the top floor. And being the worry wart that I am, I just wasn't going to risk missing my audition time because I was warming up! So, I warmed up on the patio outside by the audition room. After warming up for a bit I went inside to wait for my turn.

They were running a little ahead of schedule (which never happens in these kinds of situations) so I was really glad that I had arrived so early. The waiting area they had us in was so small and cramped and everyone was at least a little bit nervous, so everyone was sweating like crazy. It was pretty nasty. Then, finally after I had cooled off a little bit it was my turn! Then the sweating started all over again! I walked in and the girl manning the door introduced me as Shane Leavitt. Shane? Really? There isn't an 'n' anywhere in my name! And without even thinking, I corrected her! Now, my brain was going a mile a minute. Do they think that I'm a diva because I corrected her? I don't want them to think that my name is really Shane! Oh, well. I handed my music to the accompanist and then prepared to sing. They asked what I would be singing for them so I told them that I was going to sing So anch'io. There was one woman on the panel of five people. She then said, "Well, why not?" haha so I sang my song. It was little nerve wracking to be honest. The woman was the only one that actually seemed the least bit interested in my performance. The others just sat there and stared at their computers while I sang to them. But, I felt very good about my performance. My high notes came out as easily as ever and I was feeling good. They didn't ask me to sing a second piece, which was fine by me. The first piece is hard enough on my little vocal cords. As I was getting ready to leave, one of the men asked me how old I was. I told him I was 23 and almost in unison they all said, "Ohhhh." and shook their heads. Then the same man asked me where I studied. I told him that I just graduated from Southern Utah University. Then he asked me who I studied with. I told him that I studied under Carol Ann Modesitt. He seemed pleased with my answer and they thanked me again. I thanked them for the opportunity and I left. As I was walking out of the room, the girl manning the door apologized for butchering my name. I told her that it was fine. Then one of the ladies sitting outside the door told me that I had "a cute little voice." - I'm sorry what? a cute LITTLE voice? I know I'm a small person but I don't think my voice is all that little anymore. She was quite a bit older than me so maybe she thought that I was younger than I really am too. I don't know. I guess I shouldn't let things like that rub me the wrong way. - Sorry, my diva side came out a little.

But, my audition was over! I had done it and it went well! They told us we would hear back by November 1st. If we don't hear anything by then, we can assume that they won't be needing us this year. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

September 11

September 11, 2001. I remember that day so vividly as does everyone else, I'm sure. I found out that the first tower had been hit while I was on the bus going to school. I was in seventh grade and my first class was Biology with Mrs. Matthews. On the bus, my friend, Vanessa had informed me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I had no idea what the World Trade Center was. I was so confused. Then once we arrived at school we all went to class like normal, except it wasn't a normal day at all. The feeling in the classroom and around the entire school was so somber and almost reverent. Nobody was talking about who so-and-so liked or if they had done their homework that night. We all knew that something serious was happening. We just didn't know what exactly. Instead of learning about biology that day, Mrs. Matthews let us all watch the news. From what I can remember, about 5 or 10 minutes after Mrs. Matthews turned on the TV we watched the second tower go down. I remember my teacher yelling at a news reporter on the screen telling him to run because the debris and ashes were flying towards him. At that moment, I knew. I knew that this was a really bad thing and I was terrified. I cried. I was scared for those poor people in the towers and planes. My heart was aching for the families of those who had been killed. Then I realized that there were firemen and police men trying to help those innocent people and I realized that they were in serious danger as well. This really struck a chord for me. My dad is a fireman, and I couldn't help but think that, that could have been him if something like this happened in Las Vegas. I am so grateful that he didn't have to do anything like that. I don't know what I would do without my dad. For the rest of the day all we did was watch the news in class. I'm so grateful that my teachers thought it important for us to watch and learn that day. I will never forget that day.  Today, I remember those that have lost their lives for their country. I am so grateful for them. They are all true heroes.

This being a grown-up stuff stinks. It's a stupid game. I don't want to play anymore. I want to be a kid again and have my biggest problem be whether I should wear my twirly red dress or my neon pink, yellow and green dress. Those were the days.

life and things.

I feel so strange. School is about to start and I'm not going back. It is such an interesting feeling. I feel like part of me is missing but then again I'm SO glad that I don't have to go back. I mean 17 years straight of going to school is a long time. But, that's all I've done my whole life so I feel weird. Ugh. Has anyone else felt this way? I'm sure they have. Man. It's weird. I don't know if I like it or not. Maybe it'll be different once school starts and all my friends starting talking about school and the dramas that come with school and all that jazz. Then I'll probably feel much better.

But then there is this scary thing called the future and I have no idea what it has in store for me. So that's scary too. Being in school is nice because you didn't really have to worry about where you were going to be in 2 months because you were going to be in school. Oh boy. Okay. I'm done.

(This post sounds very "Charlie Brown-like" to me. Like it should be in a Peanuts comic strip or something.)

July in a nutshell

I knew I would be bad at this blogging thing. Oh well. So July was a crazy month. I worked a lot and my apartment was broken into and just life in general. I'll start with work...So, the Utah Shakespeare Festival is a vacation spot for most of our patrons and so they like to come during the holidays so the Fourth of July and Pioneer Day were both pretty busy and crazy. And of course Les Miserables was playing on the Fourth so that made that day even more crazy. (EVERY performance of Les Miserables has been sold out.) Luckily, work has calmed down quite a bit since then. Well... other than all of the rain the last few days. Ha But I don't have to deal with that.

Alright, now onto the break in. So a few weeks ago I woke up because I had to use the bathroom and when I walked out of my bedroom I noticed that my front door was open. My just woken up brain didn't really register that this was a bad thing until I walked over to close it and noticed my roommate's wallet on the floor with all of her credit cards scattered all over the floor. I then went into her bedroom and woke her up to ask her if she had been randomly going through her credit cards in the middle of the night. (ha I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to freak out too early.) She, of course, told me that she hadn't. So, now I'm freaking out on the inside. My heart is beating like crazy and my mind is going like a mile a minute. We then both went out into our living room area where her wallet was and we found her purse on the couch. She then looked through her purse to see if anything was missing and sure enough, her ipod and ipod adapter were both missing. At this point I realized that some of my things might be missing. So I went looking for my purse. I knew that I had put it in my room because before I went to sleep the night before I put chapstick on my lips and I keep my chapstick in my purse so I won't lose it. I went into my room and couldn't find my purse anywhere. So, then I called my mom because I had one of her credit cards in my wallet. While on the phone with my mom she tells me that I need to call the police. So I tell my roommate to call the police. My dear roommate has this fear of talking to people on the phone and so she just sat and stared at her phone for a few minutes until I became impatient and called the police. I told the police what happened and they sent a cop to our house. After talking to the cop and giving him all of our information and I then called the music store because I was supposed to teach voice lessons that morning but there was no way on earth that I was going to be able to teach little kids how to sing when I was on the verge of crying. So, my roommate and I then decide that we need to go tell Company Management and we had been broken into and see what they could do to help us out and on our way I look over and see my purse lying on the ground with all of it's contents scattered all around. I checked my wallet to see if anything was missing and those little butts took my $2.00! Seriously!? $2.00? I think they learned their lesson. That my place is not the place to rob if you are looking for big money. I ain't got it.

Okay, I have one more story for you. This one happened today. So, as I said before I teach voice lessons at the music store here in Cedar and I had a lesson today at 12:30. So, I decided to jump in the shower at about 11:00 to give myself enough time to get ready. I get in the shower and my loofa is on the floor of my bath tub so I picked it up and put it back where it goes and as I do this I notice a big ol' spider just a chillin. As you all know, I don't do spiders! We aren't friends. Not even a little bit. So, of course, I screamed. I guess my scream scared it because then it started crawling and fell off the of the loofa and started heading my way. So now I'm screaming, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!" I grab my towel and run out of the bathroom. My roommate and sister are sitting at the kitchen table just laughing at me. They ask me what was wrong and I told them and they start laughing even harder. Then to make matters worse my gay neighbor's boyfriend walks by and I'm standing right in front of our wide open door. Such a good way to start out the day. But all is well. The spider didn't get me and it went down the drain and everything. But I still didn't shower in my shower just in case it decides to make a second appearance.

Life is so good. I'm such a lucky girl. I have an amazing family and wonderful friends. What more can a girl ask for?

As most of my friends and family know, I'm definitely the jealous type. And at this very moment I'm feeling a little jealous.... my parents and Clancy are all on Trek right now, and I wish I could be there too. If they called me and said that they needed me to be there I would drop everything and get my little butt in my car and drive as fast as I could to get to the Bunkerville Mountains where they are having their trek this year. I don't know why they would need me but I would go. Who knows maybe they might need someone to sing all of the kids to sleep. haha I could do that!

My parents were called to be in charge of Trek 4 years ago and I guess the Lord thought that they either didn't do a good enough job last time OR they did such an amazing job that they were called to be in charge again this year. (They didn't let me go last time either. I think that's just rude.) I'm guessing the amazing job one because everyone had such good stories to tell when they came home. I loved listening to all of their stories. I few of my aunts and uncles were Ma and Pas and so the Sunday after Trek at Sunday dinner they all just sat around and told stories about their families and I loved it. I hope I'm able to go home this weekend for Father's Day and to listen to their stories again. I know that the reason they have such awesome stories is because those that were called to help put this amazing experience together for the youth were and are inspired. Heavenly Father knows exactly what those kids need to learn and I believe that they learn a lot of life lessons on Trek that will help them throughout their lives.I feel sad for those kids that refused to go because they are missing out on such a good experience.

"These are a few of my favorite things"....

My Family

My Friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwgLuLlxd1w&feature=BFa&list=HL1318807330&lf=mh_lolz&index=2

Singing this song. I sang this song in my Junior Recital and I just can't get over how much I love it.

Spider in my bed!!

So, as you know, I work at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and the Utah Shakespeare Festival is a professional theater. Professional theaters are required to offer housing for their employees. Which is fantastic because that means I get free housing. Although, free housing doesn't mean that the apartments are nice. The apartment that I live in is partly underground. Also, our apartments don't have air conditioning so when it's really hot I like to open my bedroom window. Bad idea. A few nights ago I found 2 ants crawling on my bed. And this morning there was a SPIDER in my bed. I can't handle spiders. I mean they are fine when they aren't near me but when they are touching me and my bed that's not okay with me. I think it's time to rearrange my bedroom so my bed isn't under my window anymore.

The beginnings.

So, I finally gave into the blogging thing. I just spent about 2 hours looking at blogs on my sisters' blogs and decided that since I'm really not good at writing in a journal maybe I'll be better at blogging. Who knows. So here goes.

I just graduated from college about 3 weeks ago with a Bachelor's of Music. I've been asked about a million times what I'm going to do after I graduate. And honestly, I have NO IDEA! I'm so afraid of the future right now. I feel like I have zero direction in my life. At least I have until the end of October to figure the next step in my life. I'm working at the Utah Shakespeare Festival right now and through October. So I should have a busy summer ahead of me. I'm also teaching voice lessons at Cedar Music Store and Studio along with working at the Festival. I can tell already that it's going to be an exhausting summer but that will be good for me. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my voice in shape by teaching because I'm not planning on taking lessons during the summer. Although, I'm starting to think that I should. I'm starting to worry about my voice. I'm terrified that I'm going to lose everything I've been working towards the last 5 years in one summer because I'm not keeping my instrument in shape and I'm not going back to school to have my teacher help me remember how to sing again. Maybe this means that I just need to start practicing again (confession: I haven't practiced since before my senior recital. That's not good. ha) and then maybe auditioning for something rather than just sitting and thinking about it all of the time. I don't know. We'll see. But to end on a good note.... I have Netflix and I got Candide in the mail yesterday so I watched it today after work and it has really inspired me to learn "Glitter and be Gay." This is good! :)

Here's a little proof that I actually gradated.

 Geneil and me walking at Commencement.

 My friends. (The red robes were for the choir. Geneil and I sang in the choir but since we graduated we didn't have to wear the lovely choir robes.)

 The Bradshaws. They were/are our Cedar City parents. We spent many a Sunday evenings at their house for Sunday Dinner. Dr. B. is an amazing cook and was nice enough to invite us over all the time for dinner. ... Cute side note story. So Dr. B. is not only the Music Department Chair but he is also the High Councilman in my young single adult ward and this last Sunday he noticed that I am the only one left in town of my group of friends, so after church he had his daughter, Lydia, call me and ask if I would like to go to their house for Sunday Dinner. I already had plans with some friends for dinner but I thought it was so sweet of him to think of me and to invite me for dinner.

More friends. This time graduation was real because we have our diploma holders... no diplomas yet but we have something to put them in!

Recital Pictures. See I really did do a Senior Recital!

My friends! Kjersti, Heather (she also played the violin in my recital. She's a beautiful musician.) Christine, me, Geneil, and Karyn.

 Us again plus Christina and Talisha and minus Heather and Christine.

Me and Karyn. Karyn makes fun of me because whenever I take a picture with someone I stick my chin out. But I can't help it! I'm so much shorter than everyone else I have to stick my chin out to make me taller.