We cast ourselves into the Fiery Furnace yesterday for the first time and emerged not only unscathed, but to a standing ovation, which was exciting. It was so wonderful to see Daniel's piece so well received by an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. 
High Schoolers around the country today are participating in Day of Silence.
As I have worked to prepare Daniel Kellogg’s The Fiery Furnace, which has its world premiere tomorrow evening here in San Diego, I have struggled to find common ground with my character. The piece tells the story of the fiery furnace from the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, in which three young Jewish men, in order to remain true to their faith, defy Nebuchadnezzar by refusing to bow down to a golden idol of the Babylonian King. Nebuchadnezzar punishes them by throwing them into the fiery furnace, where they are witnessed walking with “the son of God” and from which they emerge completely unharmed. My role in the piece is Shadrach, one of the young men who is cast into the furnace. As I wrote in while singing Bach in Chicago, my relationship with my faith has been a constantly evolving one, and I have come to question it over the years, like I assume most people do. While I have always believed in a God, I question more and more the validity of the Bible being the word of God. I mostly take issue with how much focus there can be at times on the proscriptive and seemingly hateful passages in the Bible that seem to me to skew its larger message of faith, hope, and love. It seems to me that perhaps some human error seeped into it over the years. I’ve also come to question the idea of man’s unworthiness in the Bible – why shouldn’t we be worthy of God’s love? We are theoretically all God’s children, are we not? All parents’ love should be unconditional, and certainly God would be the one being capable of such greatness.
Daniel’s setting of this story begins with Shadrach leading a prayer of penitence, assuming responsibility for the sack of Judah and pleading for God’s mercy. He acknowledges that the wayward ways of the Jews were the cause of their current plight as they brought the wrath of God upon them.
As I set to learning this music, I had trouble reconciling myself to embracing this idea of a wrathful God – my emotional walls were instantly up, and I felt myself detaching from the piece. I wondered how I was going to find a way to commit to Shadrach and his logic. I judged Shadrach for being so misguided in believing that he and his people were only worthy of such incredible misfortune. I don’t believe that a performer can do proper justice to their character if they are judging them in anyway. Performing anything demands the utmost empathy and compassion.
This morning, after having struggled with this for weeks, I suddenly realized that Shadrach was not misguided at all, but actually wise and inspiring. Shadrach and his companions share my belief that God’s love for us is unconditional. He acknowledges what he feels are the mistakes of his people, and his wisdom is in seeing that the only way to move on is to learn from those mistakes with a humble heart. He does not in fact believe that he and his people are unworthy of God’s love, but are worthy of not only God’s love but God’s protection and mercy, as well. That he can maintain such faith that he is willing to risk his life by walking through fire after having endured the hardships of watching his homeland be conquered and then being held captive in a foreign land is inspiring. I would think that a lesser person would question the very existence of God after suffering hardships such as those.
We struggle with our faith in many things, not just God, and I found myself wondering this morning, if I maintained such faith in not only the good in the world, but also in myself during the times that are tough, what miracles could I accomplish? Every step would be a positive step forward, and I would never feel as if I had taken any steps back. I marveled that I was able to extrapolate a lesson from this Old Testament story. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what I believe when it comes to the Bible – lessons that apply to so many different aspects of our lives can be gleaned from its parables and stories, regardless.
In this transition from East to West, I seem to have lost an evening. My eyes, bleary and bloodshot with fatigue, feel heavy, and I am overjoyed by my decision to not wear my contacts today. 
My kitchen has become a disaster zone. It is the location where, earlier in the week, I burnt my arm on the iron in the midst of my cleaning frenzy. It is also where I cut two of my fingers when my knife slipped while chopping an onion for a dinner we hosted last night. Mildly annoying at most, but my left arm is now covered in Neosporin and Band-Aids. 
An older, more experienced colleague and I were talking about growing up artistically the other day, and he talked to me about observing many artists of my generation and how many have a difficult time growing from their “talented twenties” into more mature artists. It is a difficult transition, I conceded. We leave our conservatories; if we are lucky, we launch ourselves into the professional world; we struggle to establish ourselves as professionals; we start to speculate about things like career trajectory. It’s hard not to start feeling as if we have arrived somehow and the sense of expectation that comes along with that. Our dreams get bigger, and our desire to achieve them increases in its intensity. At the same time, it is easy to forget that there is still work to do. With a foot firmly planted in the hypothetical future, we too easily lose our footing in the present and the work that is at hand. A thought occurred to me: The more we grasp for what we want, that which we already have slips more and more through our fingers.
Walking around the neighborhood catching up with my aunt, a productive rehearsal with Jeremy, a visit with a best friend, a concert in Carnegie Hall with wonderful colleagues. I couldn't really ask for more.
The door opened, we glided out onto the stage, took a bow, and then I noticed that there were people in the audience. I began the first song of the evening.
Today was an attempt at being restful, with only a relaxed rehearsal work-through for our NYFOS concerts next week. Most of my relaxing involved consuming an inordinate amount of food throughout the day. The other part of relaxing involved trying to repair my desktop computer, which has been out of order for months now. It stares at me from across the room when I wake up in the mornings, imploring me to fix it. I heeded it's call today. Now that I'm overstuffed with food, I'm telling myself that at least I'm stocked up on energy for the week ahead. The computer is still on the fritz, but at least I have been trying all day.
It's the end of a long day, so I am going to go to a movie and have a proper date with my other artist, Jeremy.
I woke up blessedly before the alarm this morning. I hate alarms - waking up to their blare so jarring. It is the closest experience I can imagine to the trauma of being forced out of the warmth of the womb into the cold bite of reality when we are born. 
The shrill, piercing bleat of the alarm shockingly announced that it was time to wake up. I saw that it was still dark outside, and rolled over back to my dream, choosing to believe that the alarm was lying. The puddle-jumper door closed and the flight attendant informed us in a tired, canned monotone that it was time for us to shut off our cell phones. The moisture was immediately sucked out of my nostrils now that we had been sealed into the tiny cylindrical body of the plane. I noticed that I was in an infinitely better mood than I often am when I have to fly, and then I looked over and realized how much more pleasant it is to travel with Jeremy in tow, as opposed to leaving him behind in our haven on the Upper West Side.
Looking over at this sweet, generous, loving man that I share my life with, I felt our impending first recital together looming in the back of my head like a child screaming for attention. Ignore the recital-child, and he will create problems when they are least expected. Devote a little thought to him, and there is a greater chance that a crisis will be averted. I dutifully and a little grudgingly pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil to write out the texts of the songs that comprise our program. My immediate thought as I began writing was to admonish myself for not having done this simple exercise sooner. Somehow, a gentle and forgiving voice managed to find its way to the forefront of my mind, reminding me that I had been planning on having another month before putting this program up in public. As the plane took off, I regurgitated each poem onto the page through my pencil, and my anxiety about remembering each word and entrance slowly transformed itself into excitement for this unexpected opportunity to perform tomorrow.
Immersed in Bach last weekend in Chicago, I began to notice how much my ego has come to play a role in my music making as of late. Part of it is the nature of singing oratorio pieces as opposed to opera. We show up to rehearse, rehearsals are short and to the point, and then we perform. The focus is on the music, and on the group as a whole and less on people’s voices and how high or fast they can sing (Carmina Burana excepted). The operatic world can be very focused on things like fach (a vocal niche in terms of repertoire), the size of a given role, how well you sing the high note in the aria, etc. Part of this is because opera is a form of theater, while oratorio work is a more musically focused event. I feel blessed to be able to do a healthy mix of both. 
Why am I so bad about going on Artist Dates? I never do them. I'm devout about doing my morning pages - I have been for years. But the dates? I either forget to do them or try my damnedest to avoid them. I even tried to invite someone to go along with me on my artist date tonight. The first artist date I've gone on in months.
