Annah is a junior (actually, with all her credits she is officially a senior) Vocal Performance major at SIUe, and gave her junior recital tonight. What an honor it was to be in her audience and see and hear her incredible performance. She has worked so hard through a really ridiculous and difficult few years, and it was such joy to experience her performance!!!
Annah's voice teacher,
Dr. T, gave a lovely introduction about Annah. She has been the best blessing about Annah transferring to SIUe and changing her major to performance. She is a phenomenal teacher and support to Annah, and we are so thankful Annah gets to study with her!
The recital was in Abbott Auditorium in the library on campus, which is such a nice place to sing!
Annah wore the lovely dress I wore in her Uncle Travis' and Aunt Erin's wedding in 2001 along with a sparkly taupe shawl I crocheted that happened to match it perfectly. She looked so beautiful!
Annah's accompanist,
Nancy Mayo is a fabulous professional, who Annah says is amazing to work with. Annah's was about the 18th recital she has accompanied in the past few weeks, and I heard her talking about accompanying violinists and flautists on the convocation recital this morning. I think SIUe keeps her very busy, so Annah is extra grateful to be able to work with her.
I can't even express how it felt to experience Annah's performance. Of course, she made me think of performing my own recitals 20+ years ago, and even sang one of the same pieces and studies out of many of the books I used in college. I also know how hard she had to work to pull off a performance like this, with such difficult music.
Really, though, I am just in awe of how much her voice has grown while studying with Dr. T. these last 2 years. She sang with such control, expression, confidence, precision, clarity, and beauty. She was truly absolutely incredible.
Annah's program was very difficult and included four languages. Her coloratura work on the Handel was so clean and lovely. Her German has really gotten good, and I loved the Schubert set. I did four pieces by Debussy on my senior recital at Capital, and I hold that as kind of a pride point that they're probably the most difficult thing I ever performed. Annah sang all six of the Debussy Ariettes oubliees, and she made them seem effortless! I was not familiar with Ricky Ian Gordon, but her final set was so touching and the perfect way to end her recital. It was all I could do not to sob with tears streaming down my face the entire time, but I couldn't see if I let the tears come and I was recording video and didn't want to be heard sniffling on it! Dr. T. told Annah afterwards that she had given a graduate level recital, and I wholeheartedly agree. She was incredible.
