Fun Recording Session

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day in the recording studio. Wayne is putting together a demo of the musical "Imperialism" and he wanted singers to perform the music in order to shop the musical around. The music and lyrics are fantastic and it was really fun learning the parts. This style of music, although latin based, is quite a departure from the kind of music I usually perform so it was a great challenge. Performing music that has to be sung as written is actually more of a challenge for me than "interpreting" the music as I do when I perform my own music. So for this reason I had to spend a good amount of time learning the songs before stepping into the studio. All the work paid off in the end as the recording went smoothly and it was relaxed and fun. Along with Wayne Wallace and Gary Mankin, there were three other singers present to represent the different characters of the play. (I seemed to represent the peasant woman more than anything!! Hmmmmm) Bryan Dyer, a fantastic vocal and musical talent, David Chaidez, also a fantastic singer and musician, and my label-mate Alexa Weber Morales, who has a beautiful clarion voice. Wayne was nice enough to let me record all of my music first so I could leave a little earlier than everyone else.

This was a good thing as I wanted to attend the memorial of an ex-coworker. Barbara Walters (no, not that one!) was a graphic designer with whom I worked at Cisco. She was a very kind and talented woman. She passed away just shy of her 60th birthday of lung cancer. Her family had a lovely memorial at the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco and I'm glad I was able to get there to pay my respects. This was a woman who lived her life in the way she wanted and didn't sacrifice her integrity along the way. She is a great inspiration to me to make sure that I too live my life to its fullest and not take it for granted.

I leave Wednesday for Chicago. Yesterday before the recording session I did a quick interview with Rodolfo Sanchez of WHPK radio in Chicago. When I arrive in Chicago I'll be doing two interviews that same day: one for chicago Public Radio and one at WIIT radio at 6pm. All of these interviews will hopefully help to generate the kind of buzz I want to get people to come out and hear me at both the Cultural Center at noon and Katerina's at 10pm--both on Feb. 22. I'm really getting excited about going to Chicago. I'm just hoping my vocal cords don't freeze!!