1/3 Gone!

Ladies and gentleman! Welcome back to this semi regular update location! And would you look at that, here's an update! 

It's slightly scary to think that we are beginning week three of the course! 1/3 finished! But still so much to learn! (Also, I've been told that I use exclamation marks too regularly, so please imagine at will that full stops are exclamation marks! That was the last one, I promise.)

Since I last updated, much has happened, the first thing being my participation in a Masterclass with Chris Merritt. It was wonderful, as it always is, to have an opportunity to coach with a tenor of his calibre and it was an incredibly informative and useful session. As always it was a delight to hear my colleagues sing. 

Sunday involved a day trip to Firenze which was an incredibly hot yet surreal experience. I knew I was in a truly Italian city when the first square I walked into was surrounded by ancient castles and had a big band playing band versions of Italian arias. My favourites were an uptempo rendition of the Pearl Fishers duet and Largo al factotum from The Barber of Seville, truly toe tapping! While melting, we managed to see many popular parts of the city such as the Duomo (which I think might be more beautiful the the Milan Duomo, but don't tell the Milanese I said that!) the Ponte Vecchio and la Santa Maria Nuovo, another incredible church. As with many of these day trips, they are so wonderful but one can only see so much in 5 hours. Another fundraising concert or two may fix that! 

Our weekdays, as explained before, are jam packed with Italian Language and coaching. One coach I have had the honour to work with twice is Enza Ferrari. This incredible woman was once the coach of Maria Callas. No biggie. Another element that has been fantastic is my introduction to Alexander technique. Working with Thomas Baird, Juilliard, Metropolitan Opera baroque dance specialist (again, no biggie) has been such an interesting experience working on the awareness of your body and how it all functions together. My biggest epiphany of the course so far is that we human beings like to make everything much harder than it has to be and get in our own ways all of the time.

We continue to truck along in language learning conjugations with regular and irregular verbs, articles, the genders of nouns and many more invigorating aspects of grammar! But in truth, they are very fun and our teacher Anna is fantastic! 

This weekend included a wonderful little hike to a nearby village of Peglio which overlooks Urbania and the surrounding movie set that we are living in. Followed by an afternoon at the local pool and wonderful evening with friends, it was a much needed recharge day! This Sunday had a day trip to San Marino, the smallest country within a country in the world, and the seaside town of Rimini. Highlights included more ridiculously stunning views, Yet another beautiful basilica and the beach. There was also a torture museum in San Marino, because everyone needs to know the origin of the iron maiden right? 

The following week involves the second concert of arias and art song by the students of the school and I will be performing the classic Aprile by Tosti. For those who have coached with me, I'm looking for new repertoire I promise! We also have our first concerts this weekend, but I will tell you about them later. This has been and continues to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life so far and I am so grateful to all those who made this a possibility, your kindness and generosity is truly appreciated. 

Again, pop over to my instagram to see some photos, but if you actually want nice photos, I'd just google the locations! (sits in the top right corner, the little picture of the camera)

Until next time, Ciao! 

Harry