In Summer 2017 in Wales, at the Youth Folk category of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, 28 girls walked onstage. Re-watching this performance, the camera’s distance renders our faces deceptively neutral. In reality, we were excited but apprehensive, running on adrenaline and four hours of sleep. Countless hours of practice were about to pay off. Reaching the […]

I am both grateful and slightly resentful that my parents never enrolled me in an organized activity as a child. Other kids had soccer portraits on the fridge, dance photos in frames, or piano trophies lining their walls. They had their thing, their talent, their descriptive adjective to put next to their name. These labels […]

Singing is something almost everyone does. Children sing, performers sing at ballgames, people sing along with the radio in their car…it’s a universal human activity. Because it can seem so simple, people tend to underestimate the skill it takes. But singing is a skill I have pursued for many years, and it takes enormous effort […]