Indirect Routes

I’m back from 6 weeks on the road. 

I’ll be honest: there are so many things I love about the fall audition tour. Sure, the travel can sometimes be a drag, but it’s mostly fairly easy. (Even this year’s impromptu late-night drive from Austin to Houston was actually just fine. If you can sing along with Journey and The Eagles with your boss, it doesn’t get any better.) The opportunity to touch base with people – friends, alums, colleagues – whom I love around the country is such fun. And, lest I understate the obvious, the shared extravagance and responsibility of spending weeks listening to young people sing, and forming a company from their strongest ranks, is both heady and amazingly sobering.

I’ve spent the week with audio and video recordings from the people who auditioned for us for the Studio program. I have all of our reactions from the audition room in prose form, but revisiting their performances after several weeks is informative in a very different manner. I can be a little more clinical, discerning the advantages and disadvantages of different rooms, listening to the pianists’ collaborative efforts, and comparing vocal product to vocal product. The positive surprise is that often our gut reactions are quite good! The not-so-surprising result is that there are always far more interesting performers than we can afford to bring.

I’ve never been great at saying no. 

All of this to say that Profile Phridays will be back soon, and I’m excited to share some new stories with you! But in the meantime, suffice it to say that there are good things coming, and I’m excited to share them with you.