Oh the people we meet...

Well this past week has certainly offered its fare share of humor, nervousness, excitement, and reward.

Wednesday evening found my wonderful pianist and I trying the local hotspot here in Clarksville, "Rafferty's". Now, at first glance it seems that this would be any sort of "Bennigan's" or fill in your random chain restaurant. Ohhh, so mistaken were we. We took our place at the bar for a few drinks after a successful dress rehearsal of the recital. To our amazement, here is what they had to offer on Wednesday evening. $1 margaritas, $1.25 draft beer, and 1/2 price appetizers. WERE THEY KIDDING? Needless to say the fun meter was swinging towards drunk. Seriously though, we had a great time, and met some very interesting people.

To my right there was Charles, Stacey, and Kim. Charles was obviously there with his girlfriend Stacey. They were a lovely couple that, as they put it were, "Married, but, just not to each other." Charles made his living outdoors in the construction business. Stacey "washes dishes, does laundry, and thats about it." Oh, it gets better. Charles seemed to be having a bad day, so I inquired. W: "Whats the matter Charles?" C: "Well, I just had a shitty day." W: "Why, what happened?" C: "Well, I had to go to this stupid Domestin Violence class, and its just all bullshit." S: "He used to beat his wife." C: "It wasnt ever my fault." -- I swear y'all, this is too good to make up. So, I had to get to know these folks a little better. Kim apparently transcribes medical records for a doctor's office out of her home...seems harmless enough. Then Stacey pipes in, "You should see her nipple rings! She just got them done and they are sooo pretty." Kim nodded and said that she needed a few more margaritas before she showed them off. I think I'm happy that she either forgot that she was supposed to do a show or rather became so drunk that she couldnt manage the moves.

To my left was the lovely Doug and then rather resonant Jake. Doug seemed a nice enough fellow that certainly gave my pianist an earful. I think that he liked what he saw! Jake was the interesting one here. I overhear, J: "Yeah, sometimes they just try to kill themselves." W: "Who's that?" J: "Well, I'm a counselor at a maximum security prison." -- Was this really happening? I mean, come on! Jake goes on to tell us the stories of trial and tribulation of his 20+ years in the Coast Guard and his brief stint in the Navy. I tell ya what, this guy is a story teller. It turns out that he was even on a PBS special about prisoners that try to commit suicide. He had stories and stories, and more stories. So, I had to ask..."Whats the weirdest thing that you have ever seen go down on the inside?" Without missing a beat he says so that everyone can hear, "Well, there was this one time when a riot broke out and there were a group of 5 or 6 guys that wanted to rape this ol' boy. This guy did the first thing that popped into his mind, he started defecating and rubbing it all over his body, face, and on his teeth. The guys that wanted to rape him just looked at him and said how crazy and sick that he was. " Jake then went on to explain how thats what he would have done as well. Perhaps this should be a topic in the fun game "Would you rather..."

After numerous well needed drinks we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest for the big day. Did that just seriously happen? Yeah, it did.

I found the light of day on Thursday around 10:30am or so and decided to just take it easy, look over my music and watch a little TV. Its always a game of patience on the day of a performance, especially when its just the 2 of you on the stage together. Recitals tend to be a little higher on the ol' stress meter. An hour and a half of solo singing is not an easy feat by any imagination. I have certainly found my way with these recitals and have learned what works and what doesnt after doing a few of these this past season. I should take this moment to thank the Marilyn Horne Foundation for doing what they do. Ms. Horne is right, the recital is an art form that every young singer should have the opportunity to take part in, and is a very valuable part of getting one's performing chops up to snuff. What does that mean, "up to snuff"? Hmmm...

6pm finally rolled around, so I got dressed and headed over to the concert hall, which by the way, was wonderful! Great acoustic, intimate space, fantastic piano, all that anyone could ask for! They had set up dressing rooms for us and had the bottled water and bananas that we asked for. After starting a few of the pieces and getting a feel for the hall again, it was show time! The concert went very well. I performed Handel's "See the raging flames arise", Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen", Ravel's "Don Quichotte a dulcinee" and then ended the first half with the bigt show stopper Handel's "Sibillar gli Angui d'aletto" from his opera, Rinaldo. WHEW! The hard stuff was over with. We took a 15 minute intermission and headed back out for Samuel Barber's op.10 "Rain has fallen", "Sleep now", and "I hear an Army" followed by Musical Theater Treasures, "Some Enchanted Evening", "Ol' Man River", "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'", and "Soliloquy" from Carousel. The audience was very appreciative and seemed to want more. (I was going to give them more regardless) For encores I sang "At the River" and then on a whim my pianist, during our dress rehearsal, said that I should sing "If I loved you" - so I did. It was a wonderful evening.

Afterwards there was a lovely reception and an opportunity to sign programs. I still find that so weird that people want my autograph! After things started dying down I offered to the young college students to go out to dinner with us at where else, but Rafferty's! I had a great time answering their questions, laughing, drinking $1.25 draft beer, and celebrating a very successful week.

With one rental car and with my pianist's flight leaving at 6:45am and mine scheduled to depart at 11:20, there was a problem. So, I decided to do the right thing and fly stand-by on the 6:50am flight back to DFW. So, we headed back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and drove the hour drive down to Nashville and took a 3 hr nap in the car before checking in for our flight. Of course my 6:50 flight has been delayed to 7:38, thus, providing the time to write this novel for you!

I truly hope that everyone had a week that offered as much as mine did!