Singing In The Valleys

The Eisteddfod in Llangollen on Thursday 11th July was a truly beautiful location.  I had an 8am rehearsal with the festival pianist so I was up very early. Unfortunately the Accompanist who had practiced everyone’s pieces was taken poorly the evening before so Emily, who was amazing, was drafted in at short notice and had to sight read for about 22 of the 27 competitors, around three songs each.  Our programmes were to last eight minutes so she accomplished quite a feat.

The competition in the English Methodist Church began at 10am and ran until 2:40pm.  I was on around noon.  I was actually very nervous in the morning, it was my first time at this event and it is a very popular competition. I was in the adult category and didn’t really know how formal or informal it was.  I’d learned an introduction within the eight minutes allowed for my songs as it allows you to check out the sound in the room before you start to sing and relax, plus it helps setting the scene for the audience especially if you are singing in a foreign language and I was singing O Mio Babbino Caro, Widmung and Do Not Go My Love.

As my name was called my heart was pumping, I was excited to finally sing, I released the butterfly’s in my chest using a breathing technique Kath had taught me which was useful to try out whilst not being obvious for the audience.  However, as I walking on to the stage I was told just to give the titles of my song and the composer which I thought was odd as others had been given the chance the introduce whilst I was watching but I followed the instructions and just thought, I’ll have to act my socks off so that the audience understood the song even if it wasn’t familiar to them.  It worked because in the break I won lots of compliments from the audience, my Nana was telling everyone my blog address, so any new readers hello and welcome.

I didn’t make the top three sadly but there’s always next year and the two adjudicators said I had a bright and promising future ahead of me and not to be too disheartened, one said he could see my soul when I sang which was a lovely compliment and they agreed to a photo for my blog it’s a bit blurry as Nan’s not used to taking photos with a mobile phone.

Yesterday it was so beautiful at home my parents suggested we go to Delamere Forest to take some photographs, my Dads renewing his interest in photography and is talking about wanting light reflectors and all sorts, I’ll post some photo’s this week to see what you think.