Newsy News News!

So here is the news!

Jamie, who came back maybe two or three weeks ago from 10 months working on Disney Cruise Lines, just got hired to the Sesame Street tour! This is very exciting and great for her. They tour the east coast for three months, then go to Hawaii, then get a break for a month during which she can come back here (although it is likely to be the month I am likely to be in the Adirondacks, which would be sad...), then to Asia!! It is pretty neat that she got hired so soon after getting back. She is having a successful career as a performing artist! Wow!

It is sad for the rest of us, of course. I was so pleased to have her back - it is nice to have companionship during the day, when Tom is asleep and Alex is at work, and Jamie is super fun and great. Also, all our rents went down this month because she was here, which was especially great for me. So my life will be a little lonelier again and my finances a little tighter again (although my budget is somewhat arbitrary, since it is based on how much money I want/need to be spending, rather than how much I make, since what I make is so erratic!). Oh well! It is warming up here, so I can spend more time outside, and I have been trying this last week to really buckle down and look for work. It's tricky, because looking for work involves spending a LOT of time online on the computer, which gets tedious and old, and sometimes it involves going to talk to people, which is about the most unfun, terrifying, difficult thing I can think of. But that is ok! Maybe something will come of it, eventually!

I did have a little meeting with Michael Lavine, who is a prominent accompanist/MD/vocal coach (known for having one of the largest private sheet music collections in the world), on Saturday, and he gave me some new ideas and kinda bucked me up. He suggested emailing casting directors; visiting stage doors and asking to talk to the pianist, resume and cover letter in hand; emailing some specific people I hadn't really thought about; getting into coaching; and... I remembered something else he told me, but then I took a break from typing this and forgot! Oh well. I've got it written down somewhere :)

So about this Adirondacks job I keep mentioning: Long Lake Camp for the Arts, which is a sleep away theatre-dance-music-circus-and I think some other stuff-camp up in the Adirondacks upstate, needs a music director for one of their three three-week sessions (the other sessions are taken care of already) - and I happened to email them just as they were looking! So Geoff, the guy I've been talking to on the phone, is enthusiastic about hiring me, but doesn't know enough about music directing to pronounce his confidence in my ability just from talking to me on the phone. So their long-time music director is going to call me when he gets back to the states around the middle of the month, and if he pronounces me good-to-go, I'm hired! I know that I can music direct camp kids - certainly I have the experience! - so I think he will probably recognize that too; as a result, I'm fairly confident about getting hired.

Now I just have to find work before and after those three weeks this summer! 'Tis but a minor task....

Ha.

As for the gig last night - Performathon! a variety show to raise money for Haiti, which was to pay me $25 to play for a few singers - I showed up at seven. I met Lee, the guy putting it all together. Met the two singers, rehearsed their stuff. And then it was 7:45 (the show was supposed to start at 7:30), and none of the other performers had shown up and zero audience members, so Lee cancelled. I got paid my $25, though, and Lee is prepared to call me again, and one of the singers (who is French! from France!) has my card and is also prepared to call me when she needs a pianist. So I think it was a productive evening!

Well, I think that's all for now! Alex is headed to the DMV to finally get his New York ID card, so he can get a library card, so he can copy sheet music at the NYPL. I might meet him at the library later, if it does not conflict with playing for Leigh's voice lesson down at NYU. Then laundry, then watching the end of Passing Strange, then bed, I expect! And before all that, I need to keep looking for work....