Video: When I Get My Name In Lights

Here is a video of me performing at the Gala Showcase of the Niagara Musical Theatre and Voice Competition in May.  Thanks to my amazing singing teacher, Lisa Brillon, I got my first sweep of all the categories I competed in.  Hope you enjoy the song and dance.

Update: After 3 months of quiet

Wow.  I can’t believe that I haven’t written anything in 3 months.  After Alice in Wonderland, I had to immerse myself in getting caught up at school and with all of my other stuff.  Here is a short review to get you all caught up.

School:  Everything is great.  I auditioned to attend Laura Secord High School which is the only arts high school in our area.  I’m excited to say that I got accepted so I’ll be starting grade 9 there in the fall.  This summer I’m planning to take my mandatory phys. ed credit at summer school so I can focus on the good stuff in September.

Acting:  I’ve been back and forth to Toronto for auditions a bunch of times in the past few weeks.  I just had one yesterday for a kids movie of the week.  My fingers are crossed but I did have a great feeling coming out of the audition.  We started shooting The Telltale Kindred and have most of episode one shot.  We’ve run into a couple of scheduling challenges but are working to get more in the can.  The cast is great and we have tons of fun on set.  I haven’t auditioned for any theatre in the last little while due to my commitment to this project.

Singing:  It’s music festival season and I’ve been working up my repertoire to get ready.  My teacher, Lisa Brillon, is demanding and a total perfectionist when it comes to diction so I’ve been slaving away on my songs.  All of her beatings have paid off because I was in 2 festivals last week – Stamford Kiwanis Music Festival and the St. Catharines Kiwanis Music Festival.  I was in 4 classes and won first in 3 of them.  I got second in the last and it was a 1 point difference between 2nd and 1st. I was recommended to the provincial level music festival from Stamford.  This is the 2nd year in a row to go to the provincials and I am so pleased with that result.  I also won a cash scholarship from Stamford so I can do a little shopping.  I’ll be competing in the Niagara Musical Theatre and Voice competition in a few weeks.  Stay tuned for updates.

Dance:  I’ve been working on tap, ballet and jazz this year.  Our end of the year recital is coming up and I’ll post some photos from it – even though they have me wearing a fuchsia vest in one of the numbers.  I’ll say one thing, I’m a lot more flexible than this time last year.  Proud to say that I can stand on one foot and put the other foot behind my back and touch my head.  The move to Broadway Lights dance studio has been great.

That’s all for now.  I promise to write more often.

Update: Burlington Rotary Music Festival

My sister and I just finished up our musical theatre competition pieces at the Burlington Rotary Music Festival.  For me it was a very intense day of learning and competition.  In two of my classes, there was the same two other girls and I.  Both girls brought some great songs and really strong performances.  I placed third in Canadian Composer and first in Contemporary Solo.  Then in my concert class, there were 7 performers – two of whom had won provincially in June.  Again, the competition was something fierce.  I was really proud to place third in this class.  I’ve found a number of small things to work on that will help me take some of these songs to the other competitions in the spring.

Overall, I have a great day.  I was singing with people I liked and respected… and of course, it’s always great to perform for an audience.

My sister sang her three classes between yesterday and today.  She took two firsts and a second; again in very tight competition.  Now, I’ve got to hear how she did better than me for the next few weeks!  I’ll have a few choice things to say about that, let me tell you.

Anyhow, I’ve got two weeks of comparative relaxation while I prepare to head to the NATS singing competition in Waterloo.  It’ll be nice to sleep past 6am for a start.

Update: Provincial Music Competition

Honourable mention = Top 7 finish out of 35 entries.

On June 5, 2015, I competed in my first singing competition at the Provincial level in Peterborough, Ontario.  I was recommended out of the Burlington Music Festival and was also recommended from the Niagara Music Festival.  It was a really awesome and humbling experience.

There were 35 competitors in my age group.  We were broken into 2 groups from which 2 singers would move on to a “sing off” for first, second, etc.  We each had to perform a concert class of 2 contrasting selections from musical theatre.  One of those songs was pre-selected by the adjudicator that recommended you from the regional level.  I presented Wonderin’ from Anne of Green Gables and Razzle Dazzle from Chicago.  In regional competition, a group of singers will all sing their selections for an adjudicator and then will receive a critique and a score once everyone has sung.  This works fine when you are singing in a range of categories like ballads, up-tempo, Canadian composer etc.  At Provincials there are no categories.  It is one massive concert class.  So we were each assigned a time slot to perform and then the critique came late in the afternoon for the group in the form of a Master Class.  This made it kinda funny to perform my songs in front of the adjudicator and a very small number of people.  After I performed, we left for a couple of hours and then went to the Master Class.  It was efficient but you weren’t able to hear everyone perform.  Mind you, the pews in the church were pretty hard and my butt wasn’t up to sitting there for 6 hours.

The critiques at the Master Class ranged from very technical to very honest.  I was really impressed by the adjudicator’s honesty even though we’re kids.  I always want to be taken seriously as a performer and can’t stand when things are sugar coated so it was great to hear things about appropriateness of songs etc.  He worked with me for quite a long time with was exciting and nerve wracking at the same time.  Some of this things were things I knew I needed to keep working on like my slightly nasal vowels and a bit of softness in my palate.  My teacher and I’ve been working away on those technical things.  He also worked with my on my acting choices which was really informative.  Why did I choose to start my song sitting on a chair?  Why did I get up?  He wanted me to put some casualness in my performance so it looked more natural and less staged.  All in all it was great to work with him.

So how did it all turn out?  I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t move forward to the sing off but in the end, I received an honourable mention.  Since there were only 3 honourable mentions out of the 35 singers, I’m really pleased with this result.  I learned a lot of things just attending the competition.  I heard some new songs, met some new people and when I go back again, I’ll be better prepared.  I need to shout out to my music teacher, Lisa Brillon.  I couldn’t have gotten this far without your support and teaching.  I’m so thankful that you came up to Peterborough and made sure that all of your students were well supported.  Together, we’ll work for an encore performance next year.

Status Update: After the Music Festival

Wow.  What a crazy couple of days it’s been.  I competed in 4 competitions over 3 days and did amazing.  I took home 3 first place finishes and a second.  Not only that, but I got recommended to the Provincial level of the competitions again!  I’m glad that since I’m already going someone else is able to come from this festival.

The level of competition in my age category – preteen – was crazy high and it was the only category that needed to be broken into 2 groups because there were 16 singers.  While a few of the singers were new to me, I already knew most of them.  Half of the singers are in Niagara Star Singers with me.  Since we knew each other, the atmosphere around us was so upbeat and supportive.  We were all high fives and congratulating each other after we sang.  It makes it a whole lot easier to put it all out on stage when you’re in among friends and all around nice people.

I was really impressed with Rebecca Poff, the adjudicator.  She treated us like professionals and spoke to us just like we were doing a show.  Her comments were very insightful and will go a long way to helping me improve.  It’s funny but the level of competition was so high that she almost never made reference to the quality of singing.  She focused instead on making our performances more genuine and helping us to connect better with the music and the character.  I particularly was advised to make my performances come right up from the ground through my body instead of acting mostly from the waist up.  I was also told to learn the lyrics so solidly that I could forget them and then discover them fresh as the character when I sang.  So a lot of very esoteric but oh so important advice for those of us that plan to do more in this business.

I was the very last performer in the festival and finished it off with a huge bang when I sang The Ballad of Farquaad from Shrek.  I was asked to sing it again at the Awards Gala and we got it on video.  Look for that performance to be posted up later today.  So yeah, months of practice, 3 grueling days of performances and a Niagara Star Singers performance at the Awards Gala has left me tired, proud and enthusiastic about the Provincials coming up.  It also left me with 4 great scores, quality critiques, a scholarship cheque, a trophy and a big smile on my face.

ORMTA Festival of Stars Gala Concert

Olivia, Justina, Me – Glorious Me, Alexandre

Award winners.

And this is only half of the trophies handed out!

This is Ethan Gibbons. He played a selection from Liszt so fast, I thought he had sprouted extra hands!

Alexandre contemplates how this flower grew so big. No really… he is singing a selection from Shrek: The Musical.

Mary-Maria makes the perfect Anne of Green Gables.

Here I am, just before I goof up a song that I’ve sung for years. Don’t worry… the audience still loved me.

Here is Valerie singing in Italian. She is working on Into the Woods with me.

Stella – a friend and member of Niagara Star Singers

Here is an artsy shot my dad took of the accompanist ‘s boot.

Audition Update: The Children’s Crusade

I’m scrambling this week to prep for an audition for The Children’s Crusade:  a short film by a Ryerson University film student.  I need to learn a new monologue and get an idea of a pretty cool script.  I’ve already booked a workshop with my acting coach, Brigitte Robinson so that’ll be a big help.  The film is about a runaway boy struggling to survive in the woods who learns that at a certain time each day there will be a terrible roar and meat will appear at the bottom of a cliff.  He’s thankful of this miracle until one day the meat he finds is a human hand.  After that he is driven to discover what is happening up there.  I’ll leave it as a cliff hanger (ha ha!!!) ending but you should know it is gruesome!!!

All this is on top of mastering my solo for Into the Woods and prep-ing for my performance on Friday at the ORMTA Niagara Music Festival awards ceremony.  My crazy life never ends…. or rests it seems.

Lessons about Musical Theatre

If you’ve been following my @twitter feed then you’re quite aware that for the past 5 days, my sister and I have been competing in the Niagara ORMTA (Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association) music festival.  In total, we sang in 9 classes and I am totally pumped to say that we brought 9 medals home.   The adjudicator for Musical Theatre was Rebecca Poff – an accomplished actor and faculty member at Sheridan College’s musical theatre program.  Man, did she have lots to share with us about performing.  Here is a summary of what I learned.

• You need to have crisp consonants and long vowels when you sing.
• Every little thing you do when you are on stage needs to have a reason.  (not just ‘cuz you think it looks cool!!)  So if you sing about a flower, you need to look at, smell and feel that flower in your hand.  Then you must convince the audience that you see, smell and love that damn flower.
• All songs are either sung with or to someone.  You need to know where they are and keep them in that spot.  Refer to them by looking at them.
• When your song has an A B A structure – you need the second A section to be different from the first A section because something in the B section changed the way you see it.  Since the words don’t change, you’ll need to change your acting.
• You need to count and learn the tempo when you learn the song.  The tempo doesn’t change just because the words need to be sung quicker.
• Sing in phrases; not note to note.
• Act naturally and forget about the audience.  If you need to move up stage then it’s ok to turn your back to the audience.  People look at chairs before they sit in them to avoid sitting on the cat.  If you omit these little things, people will know that you’re acting.

Anyhow, that’s a quick summary of what I learned this week.  I’ll be putting it to good use because the next music festival comes up in April.