Here

Music has been my world since I was a child. My musical upbringing consisted of all the modern clichés of how an opera singer is born: “she sang before she could talk” people would say and naturally the big voice inside a small girl was discovered at church, I began piano lessons at five and was obsessed with the one CD I owned after saving up my allowance for weeks.

After that, the momentum of one opportunity brought me to next, an opportunity which I could not possibly say no to, until I ended up here. Where exactly is here? Here is my (victory lap) senior year as a Vocal Performance major at the University of Michigan. Here is having performed in over 25 productions in the past 4 years and more recitals than I kept track of. Here is having gone from uncontrollably crying in a high school counselor’s office because I was waitlisted at the one music school I applied to (a truly ill advised move looking back) to performing as a preliminary winner of SMTD’s Concerto Competition. Here is sitting on a panel this morning answering questions about my experiences as a music major to scared perspective students on the day of their audition. Here is defined. Here is expected. I’m very comfortable and very good at Here. While I may not know exactly what will come next week, I can guess with remarkable accuracy – class, practice, homework, work, recital, coaching, more homework, more practicing and an audition I may or may not go to depending on my mood. What hit me this morning is that in three months that will never again be my hectic but very predictable routine.

I can admit that I live a charmed life – part of that is my uncanny ability to always find free parking within five minutes of looking (even in Kerrytown during the middle of the day) and another part is that things just tend to work out for me. One opportunity grows into the next, somehow turning the little girl who auditioned for the church choir by singing Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid into a music major at a top university. A major benefit of this is that since I was little my life has been planned out for me, guided by the opportunities which I fell into. However, graduation is impending and my predictable musical life will soon be part of my past.

Obviously I have some semblance of a five year plan – it would be foolish to graduate from college and not – but this plan consists of large, vague brush strokes rather than neatly sketched outlines (just waiting for the details to be filled in) that I have become accustomed to. Freshman year of high school I could have guessed the majority of important details about my life in 2015, but right now I can’t even tell you where I will be living six months from now.

Sitting on the Q & A panel this morning for perspective voice majors made graduation real. It is no longer that far off, mythical event that you have heard of but cannot picture yourself being there, rather graduation is coming and it will change everything. Opportunities will be less common and more competitive. Voice lessons will cost real money and a good pianist will be hard to find. Yet the one thing that will not change with graduation is my devotion to the art form that colors my world and brightens my days.