Would Have Been

Today would have been the day of my recital.
That's right, would have been.

Unfortunately, due to health reasons, I am unable to present my recital here in Salzburg.
A three-week battle with bronchitis, sinusitis, and laryngitis makes singing or speaking for more than twenty minutes impossible.

This does not mean that I will not be presenting the recital.
This is happening, people, it's happening. Just not here, and not very soon.

I have permission from the professors here to present my recital in the fall at Gordon College.
Though my voice is out of commission at the moment, I've had plenty of opportunity to read (the libraries here are divine) and I've done quite a lot of writing. So I've gotten most of the research done, and that was the main part of the goal.

I was very fortunate to have two fantastic lessons with my voice teacher, Yvonne, and even more fortunate now that I'm on the mend that Yvonne has quite a wonderful background in vocal therapy. I'm very grateful that I don't have to try to recover alone. Unless you're a singer, you might not understand that restoring your voice after illness is extremely complicated. Not only have you lost a lot of physical strength (support, lung capacity, resonating space), but you also develop habits to compensate, and they are difficult to break. It's almost athletic in a way. And extremely frustrating. But also requiring patience. And you can tell by my abrupt and incomplete sentences how I feel about this situation.
Not pleased. Not patient. But getting there :-)

Did I mention Yvonne is wonderful? I don't know what I would do without her.
There's a real danger of creating more vocal issues after illness, and I am so glad that she's here to help, because I certainly wouldn't have known where to begin.

This is ok. I've really come to terms with it. I'm not even that disappointed.
It will happen in the fall.

The best part?
You fine people can even come if you'd like!

All for now
-Julia