Music Festival

In March, I entered the Winnipeg Music Festival for the second year, this time in five separate classes. I did so primarily out of my love for singing, and this was a great opportunity to practice solo performances more. The five categories I entered in were Folk Song, Italian Art Song, German Lieder, Broadway, and Gilbert and Sullivan. Of these, three were in a foreign language, which for was me the most difficult aspect of this task. First, I didn't know any of the languages i was singing in (German, Italian, and Russian for the folk song), so I didn't have any prior knowledge to assist me. Second, I wasn't acquainted with many experts in these languages, so it was up to me to learn them as best I could. Thirdly, there was the aspect of memorization. While I also had to memorize my English songs, it is a lot easier to remember something in a language one understands rather than something foreign. For me, it's a matter of how I connect to a piece that helps me commit it to memory. If I'm able to connect certain phrases and ideas with something I'm already familiar with, then the task is simplified. For foreign languages, that connection is non-existent, and one must therefore rely solely on the sounds and pacing of the words. Yet, I persevered and overcame this challenge by forcing myself everyday to at least go over one of the songs. That way, I wasn't rushing last minute and had enough time to get comfortable with the pieces and fine tune them for the performance. Nevertheless, I was able to overcome this challenge and successfully perform them to the best of my ability, although there might have been some lapses in pronunciation during the actual performances themselves (although that was due mainly to nerves, more than anything else!).