Gratitude for a changing career

My life has gone completely nuts in the past 7 months.

In September 2024, I auditioned for and was appointed to Lyyra, the new wonderful six voice treble ensemble from the VOCES8 Foundation. Three months later, I was asked to join VOCES8 for their month-long US tour as a sub. This came on top of booking a very satisfying schedule of freelance work for this season. I’m finally quitting my part time day job, which I never thought I would be able to do, and I had fully come to terms with that.

If you know me, you may have noticed that I have a tendency to gush about music/gigs. As someone who never thought they’d never have a performance career (see: late teens and early 20s ravaged by allergies, undiagnosed and untreated allergic asthma, and extreme laryngeal tension), every new opportunity has come as a delightful surprise. Making it into All State Choir in high school? Surprise. Making it into chamber choir in college? Surprise. Getting into grad school? Being hired for a church job? My first fully professional choir experiences? All delightful surprises. For me, that has never changed. Even though I have greatly improved my technique, it honestly took me being appointed to Lyyra to make me admit to myself that maybe I am a good singer. It’s silly, I know. But brains are like that sometimes.

The problem with having gushed for years is that I have run out of ways to express my gratitude for the newest opportunities that have come my way. I’ve used up all of my adjectives to describe extraordinary music making. So, I’ve settled into a wordless sense of awe. If I seem subdued lately, it’s because I’ve had too much to process in the last seven months. My dreams have come true in a way I could never have fathomed and I am deeply, emphatically grateful. Instead of experiencing my usual rabid excitement over every new thing, I have settled into a state of delighted calm.

I think my nervous system has had enough of my antics. And maybe that’s okay.