Seventh meeting: It's a date!

An iceberg.

Ladies and gentlemen! After two months of suspense, we're proud to tell you we've got a date. Take your calendars out, people.

1st of March will be the grand premiere of our opera, Jääkausi.

(That'd be "ice age" in English, but no, it's nothing like the movie.)

The seventh time this group met pretty much consisted of getting our heads around the fact that we have a date. Many details needed to be sorted out - what should be done about all the little details? Lights? Props? How's the marketing? What would the program notes be like and who would write them? When's the general rehearsal? Who will play?

After talking about all this and more we started slowly to turn our attention to some rather bigger details, such as the composition itself. Itzam has been working hard, and some of the scenes are already taking their musical shape. There is a lot to think about still - composing for singers has many peculiarities. Some words are difficult to be understood when sung really high, for example, and that has to be taken into account if we want anyone to know what's happening on stage. And the music has to be learned and performed to Eljas, so he can start thinking about staging it all.

Now that the Sibelius Academy has given us the performance, we have to advertise it, too. So our meeting ended with a photo shoot, and everyone had their picture taken by... me. We're embracing arte povera to the fullest, taking photos on a mobile phone camera and editing them ourselves. Well. Making certain boyfriends edit them, which is almost the same thing.

After everyone took their turn of smiling awkwardly to the camera, we went our separate ways heads full of things to be organized and thought about. The truly exciting times have just begun.

After a long silence, a musician rants

Being a musician is hardly a 9 to 5 job. Practicing, gigs, studies, pr, teaching - usually a musicians life is a creative cocktail of things to be scheduled. Sometimes, when I'm writing yet another list of things to do or practicing on yet another Sunday, I really wish I had chosen the other option: work and free time separated, and someone giving me clear instructions on what to do and when. Not to mention a regular income.

How is this related to our opera, you might ask. Well, it isn't. And still it's the reason why I haven't written for so long. Writing this blog has been on my to-do list for two months, but life got in the way. Life and poor time management.

So I find myself thinking about this eternal problem of the quality of a musicians free time. I miss free time without guilt. You know this, but I'll spell it out anyway: it's the feeling ​you get when you're watching TV or meeting friends or having any kind of a good time, really, and at the same time you're haunted​ by all the repertoire you're not practicing, all the emails you haven't sent - an endless list of unscheduled stuff. And who's doing the dishes, I'd love to know!

 

For me personally it can at times be hard to let the undone things remain​ undone. I find myself lying awake at night stressing about everything that I should do instead of snoring peacefully. I really don't think I'm alone in this​, either​ - and that's why you're reading this rant.​ I'd like to know how do you do it? How do you make your life work, what's your secret? I myself stay sane mainly thanks to lists and an incredibly patient driver/cook/boyfriend, who picks up the pieces when i run out of steam.

But please, tell us your tricks. And I'll add "update blog more often" to my next to-do list.​