Why am I here?
I made it to Torino and am hard at work with eight singers and enjoying the company of three auditing onlookers whom I hope will receive something useful from our work.
The final concert is coming tomorrow, Saturday 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm, and I think I should explain to everyone what I think it’s all about. My name isn’t Alfi, but I do have an answer.
When the youngsters, I’m trying to help, face the public we have invited to come to the Circolo della Stampa di Torino to hear our little concert, they will fulfill the spirit and substance of what it’s all about: No matter how hard we may work together during this Master Class, in the end, it is what happens in the performance that counts.
I am here to do everything I can to help these young people make that performance as close to perfection as possible. What do I intend to see happen? Well, let me try to explain myself by listing my employers. I know I am not an authorized employee of anyone on my list, but I feel the same responsibility as if I had contracts with all three.
- The Singers:
Everyone seeking to be a singer by profession is eligible for employer status. For example, this website is for you, if you are trying to find your way to that small spotlight center stage where you will have to stand and deliver. My being in Torino is part of my effort to walk the walk. After all, this website sure is a lot of talking the talk.
- The Great Creator
My most important employer is the most creative person I know: My God. Now, I know me saying I believe in God and His creative power may seem to many of you to be an aside. It is, however, central to everything. Singers have voices because God forms them while the singer is in the womb, not because of a chance digestive event during the singer’s gestation. Not for any other reason than God’s gift. So I am happy to say that I am working for God to see that as many as possible of his gifts of voice to singers receive loving care, and that He may enjoy the product of those gifts as my singing students engage in their creative work. By the way, I also believe that we are creative creatures because God is creative.
- The Audience
Unlike the theaters of the world, I do not forget that “elemental employer”, the audience. I believe that without other peoples’ ears there is no performance. It is always just a rehearsal, or worse; a hobby. I am working for the people still warming the seats. Singers are remarkably hard to convince of the peculiar relationship an artist has with his fellow human beings. Anyone wishing to be a professional using his or her voice for a creative purpose has to understand that the voice is for communicating and as such a communication must take place, and it must be with an audience. Eventually, we’ve got to sell a sufficient number of tickets for participating in that communication to justify the professional level fees for services that theatres are finding harder and harder to pay these days. I stand as ambassador from the ticket buying public, and do my best to direct each gifted singer toward an interesting and satisfying conversation with my employer who continues to buy tickets and hopes to be entertained.
The theater directors of the world seem to forget the audience, and I believe the crisis in the performing arts has its majority explanation in that forgetfulness. It is perhaps the largest problem for a singer as well. Forget your audience, and it will forget you….
Oh! Let’s not forget all those audience regulars who have decided to stop buying tickets. I have no idea how to get them back into the seats, but I know why many of them decided to stop keeping those seats warm.
Singers who only fear their audience are shoulder to shoulder with the theatres of our day, and together they are the ones who can bring about the future feared by everyone who loves the performing arts.
We sing for an audience because that’s what professionals do. You can’t leave God out of the equation. He can certainly listen in while we’re at it, and, by the way, He can even hear and enjoy the voice of someone who only possesses enough courage to break out in song in the shower. That individual would not be my ideal student no matter how beautiful the voice. I don’t argue with God, but a great voice is often just not enough to make it in the professions.
Read MoreWhite Christmas
Our Christmas tree is up in our living room again. We exchanged gifts, and we celebrated. I pray everyone has found reasons to celebrate this Christmas season, especially if the Birth of Christ isn’t one of them. His birth has no equal among my list of reasons to celebrate this Christmas and, come to think of it, this is true of every other Christmas I have enjoyed since I signed up to follow Him. Among this long list of other things to celebrate that enlivened our 2013 celebration of Christ’s Birthday is the marking of two years of existence for this blog. I am so happy to have the struggle of putting this little pile of pages together.
Ice Bronzed back yard at dawn.
I believe the reason I have come this far is the Birthday Baby our Christmas celebrations are all about. He has shown me value in things that, without His guidance, would have had little value to me. His promises He keeps and I rely on them. I believe that if you are reading these pages, and find something useful or even just some entertaining things on them, your discoveries validate a small part of my enlistment with Christ. For His part, and it is a very small sliver of what He has promised, every moment of being at a loss to know what to do for a student or lacking something to type into my little computer for this blog, He comes to my rescue. He always comes to my rescue.
The words I keep adding to these “RockwellBlake.com” pages I think of as little blessings. My blessings, that is. You reading this blog I also count among my blessings. Thanks for coming. If you keep reading, then I have my confirmation that these pages are worth writing.
Celebrations are usually full of interesting tidbits of entertainment. This year we have the best twisted weather.
Global Warming!
No doubt about it. It’s a first for me. The snow that came down all pretty and powdery just a little while ago is now “bronzed” in ice on our roof and in our back yard. Oh yes, we cannot forget the trees. They were not left out of the coating program. For me it is another reminder of just how interesting creation is. When Christ was born, shoes were not for babies and too simple to deserve electroplating . Besides, electroplating didn’t get invented until the 19th Century and didn’t get used on shoes until the 20th Century, but what we have on our roof, backyard and trees sure makes me think that Christ’s Father can remind us in many ways of His Pride and Joy. After all, insurance companies are always talking about the Power of Christ’s Father with the words: “Acts of God”. Why not fulfill my dreams of a “White Christmas” by freezing one into an H2O “bronzed” snow sculpture?
Better than Bronze
If our temperatures stay low enough, the ice will keep, our Christmas season will be white for quite a while, and we could slide across the ice directly into the New Year.
Part of our traditional way to celebrate is to view some of our favorite movies that use Christmas as their central theme. “Holiday Inn” always inspired me to reach for the Kleenex in previous viewings, but, this time I found myself focusing on the singing so much that I was distracted from the emotional flow of the play. Bing Crosby and all his friends have lessons to teach, and I studied so hard that I did everything but take notes….. Tenors don’t take notes.
The Little Ausable River
On the other hand, “White Christmas” came through for me. There is nothing like sniffles and nose blowing to confirm that such a work of art has had the intended effect. Debbie and I, each Christmas time, dust off these old classics as a reminder of what once was seen as really valuable, even by Hollywood. We still have “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” to visit again this year. I have my big box of Kleenex at the ready.
Up Close Ice at Dawn
Please accept my gratitude for coming to read what I have to say. Two years ago, I didn’t expect anyone to be interested. Wonders really never cease. My prayers are with you that you have blessings to celebrate this “Holiday Season”. Come back, please, and often so that your visits will add to the great number of blessings I have available to help with any attack of insomnia that I may suffer in the New Year coming. I pray that we all sleep well, when we want to, in 2014, and that we all find ourselves enjoying ever more blessings. Bing Crosby will remind me to count them next Christmas.
How to walk on water.