So I live here in Shreveport, LA and I sing with the Shreveport Opera. More specifically I sing with the Shreveport Opera Xpress or “SOX” as we like to call it. The SOX does the opera outreach for the company. Which is cool, because we perform for over 50,000 kids in the Ark-la-tex region. Ark-la-tex is the region where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas border each other. We mostly perform in Shreveport though.
It’s a pretty exciting undertaking if you think about it. I mean, you don’t get paid a lot, you get up real early everyday and sing, well, an opera essentially, and we work pretty much everyday, at least for a little while. Those “not as unfortunate as you might think” things aside, it’s a very cool job. We are traveling all over the region and bringing music with us everywhere we go. The hope is to inspire at least one kid a school. There it is again, music as inspiration.
When we are not doing school shows we will sometimes perform for the general public. We have been to the rotary club, the optimists club(where we got a very positive response), and today we were at a nursing home singing for mostly alzheimer’s patients. It was a group of about 10-15 people and boy did they seem to be having a good time. As for me, well I connected with my music for the first time in a while. That emotional charge that briefly takes you somewhere else. For me the most important part is communication. I forget that sometimes. It’s easy to forget when you are singing in a foreign language or worrying about notes and rhythms. This stuff has to be pretty right on. I have resisted that for a long time. The great one’s know that and they work their butts off, so that they don’t have to worry about words in a performance. Then they just go to that place and stay there if they are having a good day.
I try to include my audience as much as possible in my journey, because they are taking the ride with me. I’m the bus driver and they are my passengers. Today, they were so close, I just made eye contact and smiled and focused on getting my point across, to some success, I think. I felt good about it. And that’s what happens, you go out there and do your job well, you feel good about it. Especially if you love it. Feeling good is the most important part of anything.
Sure, I work hard for it sometimes, I have even made a sacrifice or two. I mean, the first 3 months I was here, I was like, “what am I doing? Why am I here? Singing sucks!” It’s hard enough moving to a new place, let alone start a whole new life, even if it is only for the better part of a year. Let’s see I left the place I love the most with some of my very best friends. I was dating a wonderful woman who already lived 2 hours away. Try that relationship from 800 miles away. I left my comfort zone. My point is, I did what I felt was right and today has been one of those days that proved to me that I am in the right place. The great news is, I feel that way everyday lately. Don’t get me wrong, I have plans to get back to Asheville, at least back to those beautiful mountains. Oh how I love that part of the world! But for now I have made my choice and I am going to feel nothing but great about it. It was afterall, MY choice.
Now, luckily, I have built in friends down here. I live with 3 other people, the other members of SOX, and we all get along really well. My next door neighbors are two other good friends of mine who work with the opera company in more of an administrative capacity. These things have certainly made this transition easier. And we are all here for the same purpose… to make music and feel good.
And that is the point. We are not singing on the stage of the Met, yet anyway. We aren’t in Italy or Germany singing at the La Scala or Berlin Statsoper. We all have a friend or two whose careers have taken off. We are just folk. We are just normal people who share the same love. We get joy out of making people smile. We get joy out of working on our craft. We are here to do a job and feel great about it. It is all part of the dream.
That’s it for me today I think. Thanks for reading.
“Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere beyond the rainbow… burn their toast a lot.” -Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
Slainte,
Kevin
