On the right track

We're doing a lot of planning for next year at the moment. Maggie has, I think, settled in very well, as you can tell by her last blog entry, and I wrote last time about the boys' and their progress.

We've found a family to rent our house in Toronto, and are almost finished preparing the contract and signing it on the dotted line for another 24 months, starting in July 2008. As well, I've been looking at houses and apartments here in the neighborhood, and I'm confident - especially given the accelerated proliferation of "a louer" signs - that we'll find something attractive in our price range.

As well, I was thinking about the amazing support and encouragement that I've had since beginning this adventure, from many different people, and wanted to share a little bit of what just a few of them have said.

• "You have a fabulous voice... you have to follow your passion." - Eugene Roman, MBA, CMA, Group President, Bell Canada Systems and Technology
  
• "I like the colour of your voice very much... you are on the true path, continue!" - Pierre Fleta, tenor, stage director, l’Opéra Royal de Wallonie, professor of voice, Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Liège, Belgium
• "I am so impressed by your presence amongst these directors and (other) singers and how you are persuing your dream with diligent patience." - Peter Hejny, painter and teacher
• "Cool - you go for your dream!" - Sue McCoy, Associate Director, Bell Aliant
  
• "...you should enjoy this opportunity to experience Brussels and your growing boys to the fullest. It's not a time you can retrieve." - Marianne Czerny, poet and teacher
• "...that's amazing what you're doing... good for you... follow your dreams..." - Chris MacDonald, Associate Director, PMO, Information Systems and Technology, Bell West
• "I think you have been doing an incredible job... I think you are very cool and very brave to take this on, and absolutely agree that you must be patient. You have already done a huge amount of work with this whole project." - Dina Namer, B.Mus. M.Mus., Manhattan School of Music, pianist and professor, Queen's University
  
• "...I want to encourage you!" -Kinza Tyrrell, PhD, conductor, pianist, coach
  

It's great to have people cheering for me, and confirming what I believe, that this was the right thing to do.

I've been thinking about singing some auditions for Canadian opera companies this spring, and have just found out that I'll be coming back to Canada for a couple of weeks at the end of May/early June, to sing at the Queen's University's spring convocations. It will be a very full schedule, because the usual place for convocations (the Jock Harty Arena) has been demolished to make way for a new complex on the same site. This necessitates a greater number of convocation ceremonies for audiences of a substantially smaller size.

It is an very great honour to participate as an alumnus of Queens in this kind of thing... I guess I have to get measured for a robe and gown! It's been a while since I wore them, ten years in fact, as you can see by this picture of Maggie, Don McLean and I taken on the day of my convocation in May of 1998.


The thing to do now is to make arrangements for scheduling auditions around these singing commitments. Why, you may ask, would I audition in Canada if I'm living in Brussels? The answer is simple: it's important to maintain the career momentum generated by eight years of working hard in Canada. With affordable direct flights available from Brussels to Toronto, there's no reason I can't continue to sing on both sides of the Atlantic. We will be coming back eventually, and I'd hate to have to start again in Canada from square one, especially given that I've had some great opportunities to perform there.

On this side of the pond, I've got a couple of auditions coming up in the south of France next month, and I'm trying for more daily, while planning a trip to try and visit Pierre Fleta, my teacher's teacher, who lives near Montpellier with his wife Claude. The other thing I've been doing is following up with the people I have auditioned for already, to try and stay on their radar.

Lastly, there's our Easter holiday to plan. We're having our neighbors David and Louise and their two kids in tonight for a Maundy Thursday dinner before the week ends, and then we're flying to Scotland on Sunday, to spend a few days visiting Rob and Vicki Freeland at their house in Edinburgh. This will be our first time in Scotland, so we're very excited; we haven't seen them since their visit to Canada several years ago. Duncan and Malcolm have even been watching Robbie the Reindeer to try to tune their ears to the Scottish accent, and I'm ready to do a little roamin' in the gloamin' wi' ma lassie by ma side. Who knows? There might be a little Scotch tasting in the works, in moderation o' course.

We're back mid-week, and then I'm off to Liège on Friday the 28th to see the opening of Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys. The family is thinking of spending some time in Glons, and then we are heading off, most likely by car, to Hamburg, to visit with Max and Séverine for a few days. So things are shaping up to be very busy for the next little while! I'm sure we'll have lots of new to report, and some photographs to share...