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supercym
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Name: Cymbaline
Birthday: 10/13/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: Singing, dancing, playing piano, playing flute, learning new instruments, learning new anything, acting, reading good stuff, building relationships, hanging out with friends, good conversations, drawing, writing, talking, teaching.
Expertise: Singing, spewing bits of random information, learning, remembering random bits of information, especially about people.
Occupation: Professional musician
Industry: music
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
5/23/2006
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| Update for you.Hello again. Well, I have long since returned from my Midwest tour, obviously. It was a lot of fun. I was surprised to have so much fun with a bunch of people I'd only known a month and a half. I got to know a few people a lot better, and gained new friendships. Yay! All of our performances went well. We started in lots of snow and sub-zero temperatures in Sioux City, Iowa. Then we went to Lincoln, Nebraska, which had a lot of old buildings and is the state capitol. I bought a hat and dress from a vintage store for great prices there, and also finally got the music book for "Ragtime" the musical. We finished up in Overland Park, Kansas, where it snowed after one of our performances (but mostly didn't stay till morning). It was very cool, though, and we built a very fine snowman. I got sick the second day of tour, of course, but filled up on plenty of medication and was able to sing every performance, though it didn't always sound that great. We did three Mikado performances and two Gondoliers, which is much more fun to act in. It paid well, too, and it's always exciting to get paid to do what you love. I wasn't sure if I was going to stay with the company, but after this tour I think I will. The season's only a few months out of the year anyway, and I am truly enjoying it.
I got another job, at a studio in Upland. There's not as many students yet, but they're trying to get more for me. It's much smaller, and the pianos aren't in very good quality, but I am enjoying teaching the students and it's a lot closer to home. I got this job the week after my last day on the job in Aliso Viejo. God is good, indeed.
Well, that's all I have to say right now. Just updating. Hope to hear from you all in the near future.
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| A weekend of adventureI know no one will read this, but I think I should write anyway. I went to Napa Valley this weekend to perform "The Mikado" with Opera a la Carte. It was an adventure getting there. We only had one car, and Josh needed to take it to school and couldn't drop me off anywhere, so I packed my small rolling suitcase and small backpack and walked the mile or so to the train station. I must have looked pretty funny. I got there, bought my ticket for the Metrolink to Union Station and sat for 45 minutes, having nothing to do but eat Sunchips. Randomly, a teenage girl came over to ask me the time, then started telling me her whole life story. It was interesting. She's still in high school, but was obviously not in school because she was going to go break up with her older boyfriend in LA who she found out had lied to her. She had had a baby at 14, which she was raising, and whose father was also much older. I think she wanted someone to talk to. I just listened. She stopped when we got on the train. I wanted so much to tell her about Jesus, but didn't know where to start and then there wasn't time. Anyway, I took the train to Union Station, which I had never been to and which is pretty darn cool, I must say. I had chili and Naked Juice as I waited for Michael, who is in the company also and got me the audition, and his daughter Kelsey to arrive from Riverside on a different train. When they got there, we took the Red line (Subway) to North Hollywood. (I had never been on a subway). Then we climbed up like three stories out of the ground and met Rustin, who is also in the company, with whom we then drove for 6 hours to the hotel.
The hotel was called the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel. It was built a year ago and is a "green hotel." They didn't wash your sheets or replace your towels unless you indicated you wanted them to, so as not to waste water. They showed what their CO2 emissions, water and electricity usage were at all times. They used biodegradable "plastic" silverware and take-out containers for the restaurant, made out of corn or something. They had Al Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth on the table. It was indeed interesting, but a nice hotel. Kelsey and I worked out three of the four days we were there, which is more than I do ever. We drove up the valley and stopped and wineries and burger stands and had much fun in pretty country. We performed three times. It went pretty well - except for our director yelling at the audience members who had been let in early before we finished our sound-check the first night. He's a little temperamental. Anyway, on Monday we drove home to LA. Rustin dropped us off at Union Station and we took our separate trains home. This time, Josh picked me up from the station, though. Later that night we went to Scott's parents' house and were transferred ownership of his old car. So now we have two cars. Very helpful indeed.
Yesterday I found out something interesting. Lifetime Performing Arts Academy, where I teach voice in Aliso Viejo, could not work out a leasing agreement at the beginning of the month, and must close their doors on February 29th. I will be out of a job. Thankfully, I have two others, but I am going to need more. Maybe another studio will hire me. It is interesting because I'm not freaking out. After this next tour to the Midwest, Opera a la Carte won't have as many rehearsals or performances and no more tours, and I was thinking of trying to audition for other shows, but wouldn't have been able to do it with the teaching job. Now I can, if I can find auditions. So it's not a total loss, except that was my one steady income, especially for summer. But it was far away. Hopefully I can stay closer to home. I'm tired of driving. Well, that's all I have to say.
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| Looks like everybody else is also too busy to read anything. Hmm.
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| Oh the busyness of me...This week I played my first shows all by myself. On Friday I played piano for four composition workshops and on Monday I played for three The Night Harry Stopped Smoking 's. The composition shows are short programs put on by elementary school kids. I accompany them with a pre-written track that they have put words and a melody to (which they also perform as a drama). The teacher and another singer then perform a musical theater piece (Friday doing I Feel Pretty and Stepsister's Lament). The Night Harry Stopped Smoking is a short show performed by adults for children on the dangers of smoking. It's pretty goofy. Anyway, I was really scared, but the more I played, the easier it got. I did pretty well, considering. There were no major disasters anyway. I have one more show to learn, which I have to have pretty close to down by Monday, and which is a bit trickier than the others, so I'm scared again. But hopefully if I practice every day like I should, I will make it. The one thing I don't particularly like about this job is that I have to drive all over L.A. and I hate driving, especially in L.A. Now that's scary. But that's where they are, so that's where I go. I also started rehearsals for The Mikado and The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan with Opera a la Carte. Those are in Pasadena. It's going to be interesting because once we block a scene and go over it once there's no going back. We only rehearse three days a week, we're learning two shows, and our first performances are the second week of February, so I hope I can get both the music and the blocking memorized in time to perform well. On top of that, I'm still teaching in Aliso Viejo, where I had to shorten my hours on Wednesday because I have to drive to Pasadena after work, which makes it hard to justify driving all the way down there twice a week. But I know that when summer comes, that may be my only source of income for a while, so I might as well keep it through summer. All in all, for someone who seriously dislikes driving, I sure am doing a lot of it. I tell myself it will be worth it, but it's really tough when I look at my gas tank. Driving Josh to and from school and his job in Inglewood on Sundays doesn't help either. But this is what I have, so I pray that the gas will stretch, and so will my bank account, until it is worth the drive.
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| Here I Am!Hello! I know, long time no speak, but here I am again. I didn't write mostly because I was being lazy on this winter break. I also had no access to internet for a while. Anyway, here's the biggest things that have happened: Josh's car blew a head gasket and we haven't been able to get a loan or credit card thus far to pay for it, so we only have one car right now. I'm taking him to school so I can drive to work later in the day. It's going to be interesting until we have two cars again; if anyone can give Josh a ride home from school, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. We would appreciate your prayers for this. There has been little income over the break, and it won't pick up very much for a while. We also don't yet have the money for rent, which, of course, has to come first. But there are some good things. We now have internet and cable (it was cheaper to get both than just internet - weird, huh?) Josh played a few Christmas gigs and one on New Year's Eve. Corinne and I went to Eli's new year's party. I've been going to the church that Corinne, the Arons, and Kyle Padilla go to, which is much better than the no church thing I had been doing (working on Sundays and Wednesdays). I've played a lot of games recently, which is better than watching T.V. I started and finished a book. I started working on one of my plays, and wrote a little bit of music. So I guess that's about it. What's your vacation been like? | | |
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