If there is anyone out there who relies on my blog posts to know what is going on... sorry!! It has been such a crazy year I don't even know where to begin to get all caught up! And so here is what happened in as organized of a list as I can come up with (and pictures!):

1) I began my first season with The Dallas Opera singing with the education touring show Bastien and Bastienne! I sang in over 20 schools in the DFW area for more kids than I can count and made my Winspear debut as a part of this show! I also received my first piece of fan art which is pretty much the most amazing thing ever and a letter from a kid who was clearly very involved in the show felt it important to inform me that the teacher I winked at as a part of the show was married! Hilarious!

2) I sang really high notes for 60 seconds (thank you Thomas Adès) on our first SMU performance of the season in a silk dress that my grandmother probably made for my mother that we found in her house over the summer.

3) I sang an excerpt of Jake Heggie's Moby Dick FOR JAKE HEGGIE!!! And also Joyce DiDonato and Frederica von Stade! And the next day watched the premiere of Jake's new opera Great Scott starring the aforementioned divas! Pretty inspiring and amazing!

4) The day after that I performed Esa-Pekka Salonen's song cycle Five Images After Sappho and Hannah Lash's trio November with SYZYGY

5) Two days after that I infiltrated...er I mean... participated in a Salon hosted by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin and sang some songs and made some rather cartoon-like faces!

6) I know I technically already mentioned this but... I MADE MY DEBUT AT THE WINSPEAR! And I've included a shot from tech rehearsal and a shot from the stage (which is pretty amazing I must say) and so I'm listing it again!

7) I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see Berg's Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera! And then I immediately walked next door to the Juilliard bookstore and bought a score so I could learn the role... One day!

8) Then, thank you to Dallas Opera for being such amazing supporters of contemporary music, I attended the opening night performance of the premiere of Mark Adamo's new opera Becoming Santa Claus (cast including the ever gorgeous Hila Plitmann, whose character's aria I have now acquired to add to my crazy repertoire, yay friends!).

9) The next day I sang B&B in the Winspear again! But this time for the Family Performance which means all of my friends could finally come and watch me be a cartoon character on a big stage with an orchestra!

10) Two days after that I got to check another huge thing off my bucket list! I sang yet another masterclass full of amazing musicians, this time Mark Adamo and John Corigliano!! I sang the final quartet from Mark's Little Women with a wonderful group of girls and then an excerpt from John's Mr. Tambourine Man! And now you must excuse my brief moment of spastic joy: I SANG FOR JOHN CORIGLIANO AND MARK ADAMO AND THEY LIKED ME AND GAVE ME HUGS AFTERWARDS AND JOHN TOLD DAN WELCHER (who happened to be in attendance) TO HIRE ME TO SING THE ENTIRE SONG CYCLE BECAUSE HE LIKED ME!!!!!! This performance is now in the works! That was a pretty amazing way to end 2015!

11) After a much needed break, I jumped head first into rehearsals for The Magic Flute in which I performed my first Queen of the Night (single cast! Eek!) It was a really amazing experience learning how to sing that role pretty much every day for 2 weeks and maintaining good vocal health. And I survived!! And also I got to wear the greatest costume ever created! And I acquired some new boss makeup skills since I had to paint my own face every night for 8 nights!

12) Then I gave a rather elaborate Master's Recital! I had an Orchestra, amazing duet partners (one of whom flew in from Chicago!), costume changes, and a World Premiere! This you can actually watch unlike everything else I did this year which is pretty heavily under copyright... So if you missed it and are interested, HERE YOU GO! :)

13) I sang the pre-show music for Jordan Kuspa's new ballet of The Masque of the Red Death at The Majestic Theater (unrelated to all the Masque happenings of the prior year believe it or not!).

14) I traveled to Baltimore at the request of Jason Mulligan to present with him for his Master's presentation and then perform on his final Peabody concert!

15) Then a few weeks later we FINALLY finished up the recording of Jason's Masque of the Red Death! Our dear friend and clarinettist Brian Tracey flew in to Dallas with Jason to record. Now we are actually working on the post production to prepare for release!

16) This is an ongoing project but it technically started around the same time as all of this, Brian and Jason and I are forming a trio! The Sterling Trio! Keep an eye out for our first performances coming Fall 2016!

17) I HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE! I think that is pretty self explanatory! And I will be staying at SMU for another two years working toward a Performer's Diploma and continuing the Dallas Opera run of Bastien and Bastienne!

And that is this last year in a very large nutshell! I am extremely excited about the coming year and all of my plans!
Soon to come:
SMU-IN-TAOS Chamber music residency in which I will be premiering a set of songs by Jason Mulligan
The creation of The Sterling Trio and (hopefully) our performance of Ricky Ian Gordon's Orpheus and Euridice
Another Season with The Dallas Opera
Another Season with Meadows Opera Theatre
Another Season with SYZYGY
Mr. Tambourine Man with the UT New Music Ensemble (!!)
Of course, a plethora of recitals
And some other secret plans that there will be information about hopefully soon. :)

It has been almost a month since we finished Susannah and I miss it more and more each day. Words cannot effectively describe what an incredible experience this show was for me. Everything from the music to my fellow cast members and every single person involved made this production something really special and I will carry it with me forever. I hope to have some pictures from rehearsal and the show to share soon but for now I have included a picture I took before my last performance with our amazing director, Hank Hammett.

Immediately after Susannah, I dove head first into preparation for my performance with SYZYGY (SMU's contemporary music ensemble) just two weeks after we closed the opera. I had the incredible opportunity to perform Dan Welcher's song cycle Vox Femina in the Dallas City Performance Hall with the composer in the audience!! It was such a pleasure to perform the piece and even more of a pleasure to get to talk with Dan afterwards. He was very pleased with the performance and I hope to work together with him in the future!

Now I'm off to Miami and then NYC to perform as a part of New American Voices, a project started by Tony Boutté to promote contemporary vocal music. This will be the final concert of the series which is entirely music written and performed by people associated with the University of Miami. I will be premiering the final scene from Jason Mulligan's Through the Looking-Glass and I couldn't be more excited! The first concert will be on the University of Miami Campus in Gusman Hall at 8:00PM this Thursday (March 5th)! Not in Miami? Not to worry! The concert will be live streamed! Just go to this link at the time of the concert and you'll be able to watch! The concert is also being professionally filmed and I hope to have a copy to post here not long after the performances.

More updates on the rest of my crazy upcoming projects soon (I hope...)!

Peace!

Once again it's been much longer than it should have been since my last post... oops! What can I say? Grad school and audition season kicked into full gear and despite my best intentions I got overwhelmed and forgot.
So important updates since September:
I have been cast as Susannah in Meadows Opera Theater's production of Susannah! We have our first full sing through tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited! We begin full staging rehearsals at the beginning of January for our opening the first weekend of February. The show is double cast and I won't know which two days I will be performing until some time in January so keep an eye out for an update on that (I promise there will be one!) if you're in Dallas and want to come see the show!


I have just agreed to sing Dan Welcher's song cycle "Vox Femina" with SYZYGY (Meadows' contemporary music ensemble) on their February concert which will take place in the Dallas City Performance Hall! What? It should be great fun!


I will be premiering the final scene from Jason Mulligan's in progress opera "Through the Looking-Glass" on the final concert of the New American Voices concert series (more info here) presented by Tony Boutté. The concert will be performed in Miami, Florida on March 5th on the University of Miami campus and in New York City on March 9th in the Opera America Center.


Speaking of Jason, we are working on a concert/recording of all of his current vocal works and some new ones to be premiered as part of this project! The concert will be held in Dallas on SMU campus April 10th and again in Baltimore on Peabody campus April 14th. More information on this project will be announced very soon! 


And finally, I am a part of an exciting project called New Opera for a New World. Over the next few months I and seven other singers will be collaborating with a composers and librettists to create a new stage work that aims to portray and explore real world issues on the stage. The performances will be on SMU campus April 17th and 18th. Again, more information will be available on this project very soon.


Phew that's a lot but I think that's all for now. As I return to the depths of work to finish my semester I leave you with the Bite-Size Aria from my first performance at SMU. Enjoy!

It's been a while since my last update and so much has happened that I thought it deserved a post! A few weeks ago I started school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas working towards my Master's Degree. This Friday is my first performance as a part of Meadow's Opera Theater!! We all only singing for 60 seconds to give the audience a taste of what's to come this season. (For more information on this performance click here). I'm also singing in a master class with Mary Dibbern next weekend! On top of all of my school work and performances I also have THREE jobs! I'm working as an assistant in the music office, singing at my private teacher's church, and teaching at the Zhen Music and Arts Institute. (If you live in the Dallas area and want to study with me, now you can!) I started working on my endless list of summer program applications and we had opera auditions last weekend so I'm now in the twiddle your thumbs and wait phase of the year but I have a lot of other exciting projects to keep me busy! 

Well, that's pretty much everything for now. More info on my upcoming projects is coming soon!!

I finally got the recordings from my summer concert up!! It was such an honor and great fun to put this concert together with my mentor and friend, Dr. Tony Boutté. And as always, a huge thank you to our wonderful pianist Rachel Dean!! Below is one of the duets we sang from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Utopia Limited" and you can watch the rest of the videos by clicking here.

Enjoy! :)

This week I'm helping with the Gilbert and Sullivan summer program at Opera Naples that I participated in for the last 5 years. They are doing The Pirates of Penzance which was the first show I did with the program when I started five years ago. That experience changed my life and helped me discover my love for opera, and working with Pamela Bilik (our director and a dear friend) on this year's production has dug up some incredible memories from my past. Not only have I been reminded of one of my most enjoyable experiences but I have also been able to look back and see just how much I have grown as a musician, performer, and person since I was a part of this show. And now I get to experience the other side (being the director's assistant) and help give this new group of performers a, hopefully, equally amazing experience that they will happily remember five years down the road. 

I feel so fortunate to be involved with these incredible people as they remind me why I love doing what I do! 

And so is my new website!! 

Ok, I know I am really behind the times right now but I figure better late than never. The past month has been utter chaos with my graduation, preparation to move to Dallas for my Master's, and my latest concert (recordings coming soon) but I have some updates that I feel deserve a late blog post.

First of all, as you can see, I have a shiny new website! There are still a few touch-ups that I will slowly fix over then next couple months but as a whole I think it's done! (If you have any feedback or ideas for further improvements please let me know!)

Secondly, about two months ago I sang the title role in Michael Daugherty's opera "Jackie O" and finally we have videos available for public viewing! You can now watch the entire opera here and I've attached the video of my aria to this post. 


That's all for now but stay tuned for *hopefully* frequent updates in the near future of new recordings and other exciting adventures!

Wow it's been a while.... way too much has happened since that last time I posted but I'm not going to write a novel. The important thing is, I had my senior recital! And a month later I finally edited the video and posted it... If you missed it, you can watch it here.
Now I'm full steam ahead with Jackie as we start staging tomorrow! Eek! That's coming up soon in April! And right after that is my new music recital which I'll talk more about as it gets closer! You can check the events page for all the info about my upcoming shows and hopefully I'll see some of you there!

I'm going to a competition this week! Check out the article from the University news feed!