And so it begins...

My morning began with music convocation. All of the musicians here for the festival gathered at Fletcher Hall at 10:00am. It was great to see all of the music students together in one spot. After all, we will be spending a lot of time together.  Anyways, convocation lasted an hour. We met the faculty and learned about all of the major events that will take place this summer. Everyone was so welcoming and enthusiastic about the program. The common theme was said throughout convocation. The head of the program talked about being here to achieve excellence. We are here to work hard and grow as people and musicians. Immediately after convocation we had our opening voice meeting where I was finally able to meet and greet all of the singers. It was so good to connect. Marlena gave us an objective for the summer. All singers must come up with a goal that they must work towards over the next seven weeks. I will be brainstorming tonight... Tomorrow is the sing-in. All of the singers must perform one short art song or aria. I me with my accompanist, Joel Harder, and ran through my piece. I will be singing "Zueignung" written by Richard Strauss. It felt good to sing. I was intimidated by all of the talent here at first, but after rehearsing I was reassured that this is where I need to be. The rest of my day was fairly laid back. I am still meeting tons of new people everyday, but it's nice to be in such a musical environment. Last thing, I will be studying with Maria Fortuna-Dean. This is very exciting.