Bella Performance

It’s been 3 weeks since my last post. Christmas season, Luminous Voices Concert, Sinus Infection, Antibiotics… No doubt there are reasons. Not that I’m complaining, but now our family is set to go on a 7 day vacation to the Bahamas! I really need to make this the last roadblock. I’m feeling good about the concert, and confident in my abilities to put this thing together in 3-4 months. My speed is good, my technique is getting there, and I’ve now had a chance to perform on stage at the Bella. My biggest concern is the GuitarBorn community we are trying to build in advance of the concert and making sure we have the right audience for the show. There is no doubt we need to work together as a team to figure this out. I’m going to really use this vacation time to reflect and come up with a plan for us.

On the performance side, I had one of the most important musical moments of my career last week. Not only was I able to really overcome huge adversity leading up to my performance with Luminous voices and preparing for a big solo on the Bella stage, but I was able to friggin' MEMORIZE!!! Long story short, I purposely took a gig with Calgary’s only professional choir in Luminous Voices. The director, Tim Shantz had invited me to sing at their New Years concert. It had been years since I performed with the group but Tim gave me the incentive of singing a feature solo for the second last song of the night; Shaun Davey’s “Parting Glass”. What an honour and privilege. My biggest worry was memorization in such a short period of time as we are only given the music about 3-4 weeks in advance of the performance. Not only that, this choir is comprised of literally the best choral singers in Calgary, all of whom I admire individually, so there was enormous pressure. But I figured that if there was ever an opportunity to get some experience on the Bella stage, this was going to be it! And all this GuitarBorn practice gave me the confidence in my abilities to prepare and know what to do to get ready. Repetition, visual learning, drilling….

After weeks of preparing I developed a Sinus Infection that I didn’t have diagnosed until the day after our first rehearsal, 2 days before the concert! 36 hours of heavy antibiotics later, I was able to perform using a microphone so that I could project over this beautiful choir. I was so incredibly happy with the performance, and so happy that Hilary and my mom were able to attend in person.

This really was an important step in my journey. In this final stretch leading to the concert, I needed to prove it to myself that I could overcome the pressure and still focus and be relaxed and composed on this huge stage. I have the tools now. It’s a matter of execution and preparation until to the level of this performance.

-- Noel