To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn 3

For everything there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,3

After I graduated with my Master’s degree in vocal performance, I went to teach at a junior college in Ontario, Canada.  The Canadian arts community has a wonderful annual music festival competition that is sponsored by Kiwanis Club. Competitions are held in every little hamlet, with the winners progressing to competitions in larger cities, then the province competition, and finally the national competition.  Every music teacher in Canada prepares their students to enter the Kiwanis Music Festival.  As a new teacher in Oshawa, I was no exception.

One day the head of the Music Department suggested to me that, as the new teacher on the block, it would be good for me to enter the adult division competition as an example to my students.  I filed the necessary paperwork and chose my solo:  the Alleluia from Exultate, Jubilate by Mozart.  The piece is very high, interlaced with runs, and a real “barn-burner” for a coloratura soprano.  The adult division competed on the final evening of the Festival, with fifteen adult entrants.  The adjudicator was Dame Megan Rutledge from the Canadian Opera.

I sang well, I won the trophy for the adult division, and then was presented with the Governor’s Cup as overall winner of the Festival.  My students were ecstatic, and I, by nature an introvert, was quite smug in my victory.  As I was receiving congratulations from the audience, Dame Rutledge came forward to speak to me.  As we shook hands, she said, “That was very…nice.  Now,” she said, as she proffered a business card, “if you would really like to learn how to sing, give me a call.”  My ears were deafened with the hissing sound of my deflating ego!

All these years later, I still laugh every time I think of that moment.  It was, quite frankly, the best thing that ever happened to me.  I chose to take up the gauntlet she threw at my feet, and I gained the privilege of studying for over three years with the most amazing vocal professional I have ever met.  Her techniques revolutionized my singing.  Her passion for me as an artist helped me grow in ways I never would have achieved on my own.  She gave me wisdom, compassion, assurance, self-confidence, and love – all qualities that I would desperately need in my star-crossed life.  I am grateful to this day that she understood so well that a little judicious pruning enables startling new growth.