Going Solo

Mood: Relaxed
What's on: Food Network Challenge - Halloween Cake
Units of Caffeine: 8

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity. I haven’t had much of a life in the past ten days or so, nor have I seen much of K.

I sing with a group in Seattle, and we just had a concert this past weekend, which means that this past week was chock full of lengthy dress rehearsals. (This, of course is on top of my already busy schedule at the theatre.) K is busy rehearsing for a musical she is in, and almost every day this past week, I would come home at some ungodly hour, not too long before or after K came home, and we would both be any combination of: hungry, tired, exhausted, and/or emotional. A couple of the days that sucked were when all of those things would happen at once. Ugh!

So, Friday morning rolls around and I wake up with a killer headache and an extremely raw throat. I called in to work, if only for the morning – after a few mugs of herbal lemon tea and a couple doses of Advil. By about 12:30, my throat wasn’t any better, but my head was okay, so I thought I was ready to face the world, (in a very silent kind of way.) I was really beginning to worry that I wouldn’t be able to sing in the concert. I am not one to throw in the towel, and I didn’t want to cause any undue panic, so I planned to wait until later in the afternoon to make my decision and call the director, if I had to. So, I went into work with a bag of Halls, whispered a slightly painful “Good Morning” to my supervisor, and started about my day’s business.

About an hour or so and several mugs of herbal tea later, the pain in my throat dulled from a raw, scratchy feeling to just a closed, tight feeling. I thought that the worst was over. I figured that, if I just “faked” some of the music and didn’t push it, I would be okay for the concert. But, around 2:30 in the afternoon, I got a phone call for the director telling me that the group’s resident tenor soloist was very sick and completely lost his voice. The director asked me to do one of his solos. This is where I really began to panic. You see, it would be one thing if the music were somewhat familiar, like “Panis Angelicus” or “Bist du Bei Mir” or some other commonly known tenor solo. (This isn’t to say that it would be a stress-free situation if this were the case.) However, the music we were performing was a) know well known, b) difficult, both rhythmically and musically, and c) in Irish. And yes, keep in mind that my throat was still not in perfect shape. Above all else, the language was the biggest problem. Some of the lyrics of the solo included the following:

Ó’s óró mo bháidín
Ó’s óró mo churachín ó

Fira na farraige, fira na moina
Hin barra bin ó hin bó
Fira na talamha, fira na feirme
Hin barra bin ó hin bó

Crochfa mé seolta is gabhfa mé siar
Hin barra bin ó hin bó
‘S óró mo churachín ó
Hin barra bin ó hin bó ar í ó

Major kudos to those who can read that sans difficulty. Irish doesn’t sound a whole lot like it looks. Example: the word “siar” is pronounced, “sheer”. Learning this song is further complicated by the fact that it is sung as almost a quick patter.

My supervisor overheard my conversation and, when I got off the phone, she said, “You need to go home right now and start working on this!” I think this is one of the perks of working for a performing arts organization: they completely understand situations like this. So, I went home and just started working my ass off: learning notes, learning rhythms, and most importantly, learning the language.

About five hours later, I was singing the solo in front of an audience of about 500 people, and I somehow made it all work. I can’t say that it sounded as good as the tenor soloist I replaced, but it did not sound like I only worked on it for a few hours. Huzzah! The soloist was not feeling any better on the second night of the performance, so I performed it on the second night as well. I guess the only thing I had a problem with is that the director did not acknowledge that I was a replacement for the soloist listed in the program on either night of the performance. Perhaps it’s my ego, but I don’t quite understand why this piece of information wasn’t noted. Oh well, it’s done; I got my solo; and now I have (a little) more free time on my hands.