London, singing, friends…

This is my blog number 52, I can not believe I have been writing this blog (mostly to my mother and Akiho) for exactly one year. Every week I have sat somewhere and wrote 51 one more blogs. I set out to start a habit, the habit of writing at least weekly some of the things I do, and share them online. I have always liked the idea of writing, i find there is something poetic about it, but mostly it helps me to put down my thoughts which otherwise are trapped in my brain, in a endless sea of ideas, feelings, experiences and forgotten memories. I am glad I have reach one year and I will continue to do so and hopefully I will evolve on the way I write in this which is not my native language.

This week I was in Nuremberg, London, Eastbourne, Saunderton, Glyndebourne and back on Sunday for a performance of Hoffmann. I had 4 coachings in 5 days and that was something. There was a lot of information that came from these 4 different people which is not new to me but it really helped me to remember stuff that I forgot and or stopped applying. I am really grateful for the lesson I had with Mr. Fundling, it really opened my eyes to a new way of seeing singing as a whole, it really changed me and time will tell if it was for the better. I believe this way of approaching singing will help me develop as a singer and as an arstist, as I find much more freedom in singing when applying the concepts he shared with me. In order for me to describe how it was like, I must write a separate blog about it. I will definitely first write it down and will organize the ideas and hopefully I will share it with you on my weekly blogs at some point. I also had an incredible coaching session with Alessandro Amoretti, who also encourage me and was able to help to open up my voice more, and he has very good musical ideas and he is happy to be able to keep helping me further. I had coaching with him in Glyndebourne and afterwards he got me tickets to see the Boheme with a very young and talented cast, it was my first time there and I loved it, the acoustic of the theater is great and the level of the orchestra and singers was really good. I also had coaching with the amazing Audrey Hyland which was my vocal coach back at my Royal Academy times. It was the first time she has heard me since I left the Academy back in 2011 and she was really happy to hear my development into a more operatic voice ( I started with a sweet and more like lieder a concert singer type, if there is such), so I am glad she sees also progress on my side. I also had coaching at the Royal Opera House with Andre Callegaro which used to be here working in Wuerzburg and now he got into the young artists program. It was also great to work with him a bit. I shared with him my experiences that I had with Amoretti and Fundling and he was pacient enough to hear me and trying to explain him tenor stuff, he was able to agree with what I believe now is the right turn that my voice must follow.

I arrived in London on Monday evening, I stayed near Paddington Station so that the next morning I could go for a jog at Hyde Park ( like I did back in March and I wrote about it on my blog) and it was amazing, it was really early like 7 am and already many people were going to work or also joggging at the big park. I jogged around the pond and around the lake making almost 8K. It was amazing that while running slowly the sun was rising up and projecting its rays through the bushes and trees, the smell of the wet grass and the fresh air just added life to the scene, and on top of that, there was something magic about it with also mist around me, everywhere in the park. On that day I met with Andre for lunch at the canteen of Covent Garden and later besides and incredibly long walk from Baker Street to Covent Garden and stopped at my favorite coffee "Grind" for Flat white, I went to Eastbourne to visit Joyce Fieldsend and spent the 2 following nights at ther place. During my visit I went to Glyndebourne (which is near) and had coaching with Amoretti. I also had dinner and breakfast and sometime to chat with Joyce, we spoke about singing, Uk, Brexit, her family history, the war, politics, religion, gardening, etc... When on Thursday I went back to London I stayed for 2 nights with Jeff and his Girlfriend. I had a fantastic time with them, they are so nice, Jeff is also a tenor and a choir director and also has his own company. Whenever I visit him (last time in March when I did Rossini mass with him as conductor) is always a pleasure. We talk about life, singing , tenor stuff and his girlfriend is really friendly, and on the last evening I was there, she cooked chili con carne and it was delicious. On Friday and Saturday I met Andre and a tenor colleague of mine Tom Elwin. Tom is also a tenor who studied with Ryland Davies while we were both at the Academy. It was very nice to see him and to catch up with him. Andre and I met for quick lunch and on Satruday, we walk had coaching and walk by the River Thames from Covent Garden to Borough Market and back. We had such a lovely time sharing experiences and catching up, plus some nice street food we got at the Market which was over crowded but we managed to seat somewhere outside the market.

While in UK as you can see, I was really busy with singing. So it felt really intense, but not turistic at all. Nevertheless, I managed to see some friends and spend sometime in some other places like Marylebone High Street, Baker Street, the outside of the Royal Academy of Music, Soho, Covent Garden, I went to the National Gallery and saw some of my favorite paintings from the great masters. Ah! I almost forget, I of course tried several coffee places I wanted to go and I was not dissapointed, love coffee.

Whenever I am in London, specially this time I felt a bit transformed, I cannot really put it into words but it is just like that. I am really grateful for the experiences lived this time in UK and the really valuable coachings I had. I will meet you here next week and it will be a new year of writing blogs, I am looking forward to it.

Take care.