We are still finishing up and following up on all nine of Jessica’s
college applications. My daughter gave her first vocal conservatory
audition this morning at 9 a.m. in San Francisco. We started driving
at 7:15 a.m. She was singing two songs for evaluation by Oberlin Conservatory:
- La lontananza (Gaetano Donizetti,1797-1848) in Italian
- American Lullaby (Gladys Rich) in English
We arrived about 20 minutes early with Simona (piano
accompanist), Jessica’s resume with an 8×10″ glossy black and white
photo, and the music binder. The amount of arranging it took to
get the accompanist, the photo, and the girl to the audition
on time was tiring even though the audition itself only took half an
hour. We now have Jessica’s audition photo on-line so
we can print as many as we want. We will hear in March whether Oberlin is
interested in taking Jessica as one of their 15 vocal music students
for next year.
Carnegie Mellon school of music has already listened to Jessica’s
audition CD and declined to hear her in person. Since the audition is
80% of the acceptance decision, this means that CMU music will not take
her. She was disappointed
but still hopes to get into CMU as a regular student even if she cannot
be a conservatory student there. In two weeks, we fly to Houston, TX to
audition for the Shepherd School at Rice Univ. Next month,
Jessica sings for Lawrence (in San Francisco). Simona will
play piano again.
We have mailed out all of the audio CDs to the other schools
(Princeton, MIT, Brown, Smith, and Univ. Rochester). Jessica is
working out the remaining in-person interview dates and also
checking with each school to be sure they received everything
they need. She has already re-sent some materials to Rice.
Jessica sent her Advance Placement test scores out last month. However,
when she got the confirmation letter from the College Board, she
found they had sent a set of scores to the Massachusetts Maritime
Academy instead of to MIT. She called the College Board and got
them to send in the scores to MIT. The next day, Jessica got an
application packet from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. I guess
they liked the scores even though they were sent in error!
On top of all of this, Jessica has first semester final exams next
week. She already turned in her final project for the Great Novels
class. She composed and then recorded a CD of four songs from Toni
Morrison’s Song of Solomon (one of the Great Novels they read).
It’s a great deal of work to be a High School Senior.
KatysBlog 