Opera starts to get hard!

Don’t get me wrong, our previous Tutors have been brilliant but I think we were all secretly happy that Fergus was back with us on the Opera for Carlow Project. Not only is brilliant but the project is a joint venture for him and Brian Irvine and both of them are obsessed with opera!

Fergus is a strict but fun coach. WE did lots of warming up games and the people who couldn’t concentrate found it hard at times. After an hour of these vocal games, we began to sing opera! Fergus has composed a little ditty in his spare time. It was broken into different parts for the Sopranos, altos, bass and tenors. I’m an alto and have quite a low voice, I got quite worried at times as when I attempted the high Soprano bits, I felt my voice strain. I didn’t give up though.

We were broken into small groups of 8, which I loved and each group had to start the song at a different part. I enjoy this, listening carefully for the correct time to come in, I think I have a good auditory ability but some people struggled and had to be helped and encouraged along in the group, which was nice.

WE were then broken up invidually and had to walk around the room and sing a random line of the song at the correct time to a person, acting it out. This is the bit i find hard, it’s quite hard to let yourself go and some people at the workshop have no problems doing this so I try to be encouraged by this!

I was wrecked after this but really excited, starting to get a feel for what it will sound like to be part of a group.

If you’d like to listen in to the journey so farm, click here for details

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUBSI2OeM78

Here’s a link to a piece that Fergus was conducting.

http://www.podcastingireland.ie/?p=365

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