Resurrecting dreams...

Many of you will remember 1998.

It was the year I "officially" transfered from ANU to UOW although I had been studying cross-institutionally as of Deceber 1997 through summer session.

On the first day of O-Week, 1998, I was wandering around the University grounds thinking wistfully that if two years ago, I hadn't chickened out of all of my voice auditions at the end of 1995 then perhaps the whirlwind of the preceeding years might never have happened.

What if I HAD auditioned for voice and gotten into the BCA (my first choice) as Karen and I had planned for the 18 months leading up to our first year of uni - at that stage, even WE were on rocky ground because in she felt abandoned because I, in my own self-doubt, had bailed on the plans and dream we had been nurturing for so long.

1996 and 1997 had taught me SO much.

I learned that it was poor choices of individuals that caused so much pain and grief. I learned that God could not protect me from the consequences of mine and other's actions and choices, good OR bad. That was the stain that sin left behind.

"We like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all" 'sing Baa Baa Do Baa Baa' Isaiah 53:6 HUH!

(Thanks for that Colin ;) )

I leaned that no matter how far away I tried to push God, that He was always right there.... waiting.

A later Barlow Girl song sums up that lesson for me perfectly:

"God I never could repay You.
You gave everything.
Without you, where would I be?
You still loved me even when I
pushed you away.
You stood there and waited,
till the day I'd return."

And after 12 months of drowning my pain in alcohol and sexual relationships, and in the wake of an abortion and the abandonment of the one man whom I was convinced was my "forever" man, I FINALLY returned. After the relentless knocking, I FINALLY opened the door once more...

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, and opens up the door I will come in, and eat with him, and he with Me." Revelation 3:20

(Thanks to Colin Buchanan again! That verse now goes with me everywhere I do!)

The next 12 months (1997) were a whirlwind - confidence building in the first six months or so and confidence destroying in the next three months, and then once more, three months of confidence building.

That first semester of 2nd year taught me so much about myself; my dreams; desires; passions; talents; gifting; faith. I finally started to find my feet in an adult world. But then came my breakdown and subsequent (mis)diagnosis of Bipolar. In those next three months I discovered that all of the vibrance and activity of S1 yes, had come from me and yes, had come from within but yes, was totally driven by me - and THAT was what God needed to redirect.

It got to the point where I could not get out of bed in the morning (well, usually around lunchtime)until I had read half a dozen chapters of the bible. I could find no strength at all in myself and had to rely entirely on God for my motivation and inspiration.

As things started to slowly open up once more, my confidence started to return, I continue to date at a distance, my college sweetheart Timothy, although with all of the pain of Matt and Oliver haunting me, as hard as I tried, I couldn't make that work...

But I did start getting involved in life again - I took a couple of Skillshare job-readiness short courses, I sat for my Ls for the second time and started driving again, and in December of 1997 I enrolled for two summer session courses at UOW which eventually ended in HDs and a transfer to UOW.

And so I learned my third lesson in two years -

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

(Thanks to Elizabeth George - Beautiful in God's Eyes - for that lesson!)

So as I wandered around the UOW campus on that first day of O-Week bemoaning what I saw at the time as a wasted 2 years of pain and anguish, my newly re-aligned confidence kicked in and I wandered up to the Creative Arts Faculty where I talked to the admin assistant and enquired what I had to do to put together an audition for the BCA intake for 1999.

The assistant directed me to Sub-Dean's office - David Vance.

When I knocked on the door and was invited in, I catalogued for him my background, experience, voice type, training and recognition.

David then sent me downstairs to the head of the voice department - Jane Edwards - to talk further.

Upon chatting with Jane, she asked me if I was free at lunchtime and could I sing for her? She wanted to get an ear for my voice.

So at lunchtime, I met Jane and Vanessa (the piano lecturer/tutor) and sang through a couple of rusty HSC pieces.

Jane then conferred with Vanessa and then approached me.

"We have a staff meeting this afternoon. It is not set in stone yet, I have to take this request to the staff. This is highly unusual, but I would like to put it to the staff that we accept you into the BCA for this year - for 1998. Would you be interested in that?"

It was all I could do to keep my mouth firmly closed and nod...

I floated out of the university that afternoon - ME??? I knew I had a nice voice but to by-pass a highly competetive audition process which usually involved an intake of about 10 voice students out of 7,000 auditioning musicians...

ME???

Every dream that I had held dear from the moment I began to sing in my infants school choir began to stir in my heart. Maybe I would get to perform in a chorus capacity in London's West End after all???

So with great hope and passionate dreams, I began a new journey of far more formalised training than I hade ever imagined. As the weeks progressed, I became so grateful for my short-lived violin, then piano, theory, clarinet and voice training over the years - it had given me a natural ear for music forms that I had never really explored before.

I was introduced to the world of the symphonic, the chamber orchestra, all forms of classical music which moved me to tears in ways that I didn't realise were possible.

And then came the Opera.

With a classical background as a voice student it was only natural that I should continue to develop my voice in this way - but I fought it SO hard.

Chasing at my ankles was the haunting taunts of my highschool tormentors. Because I was a soprano, I was dubbed by those who wanted to bring, at times a quite arrogant, performer back to a reality that was less than what I would accept.

I became known as "the OPERA singer" - and I hated it. I would adamantly reply that I was a MUSICAL THEATRE singer - that was my great love and desire - and that I hated opera and would never sing it.

But when you have a voice that - my teacher one day said - had the potential to develop in the same way Dame Joan Sutherland's voice had - it is an extremely natural thing to move from classical (which I had always tolerated because of technique training) into opera.

Jane coaxed me, coached me, berated me and even one afternoon became completely frustrated with me - she heard some sort of an "impediment" in the way I was pronouncing my L which she even went and got another lecturer - Lotte - to come in and listen to.

I didn't realise it at the time - but sub-consciously, I was doing it on purpose - the more concerned Jane became about it - the worse it became.

Jane knew what I was capable of in her gut - and so did I - but try as I might - I could not 'acquire' the operatic sound that she knew was just sitting under the surface there somewhere... I was too staunchly convinced that I WOULD NOT become and opera singer - I WOULD NOT succumb to my tormentor's prophecies.

In July of that year, I barely passed my peformance module.

And in August, in a moment of complete frustration with Jane, I walked away from the degree entirely.

I did at once stage approach David about returning to the degree, but as I had been originally admitted to the degree in extremely priviledge circumstances and as he felt that I had wasted that opportunity in the fact that I only received 51% in my performance module, he stipulated that I would have to chance it with the next 7,000 auditionees and re-audition.

By then, Steve and I were going through the throes of getting married. I decided to go back to English and Theatre studies and just see what the next 12 months would bring...

The next 12 months brought Leah into our lives and I guess in some ways, that was the final nail in the coffin for my developing vocal career - children and a performance career did not gel well together in my mind - so all hope of re-auditioning for the BCA then flew out the window.


In 2005 we were living in Tahmoor. On Anzac Day of that year, I auditioned for Jesus Christ Superstar. I had seen the ad in the paper - I was scaling down my work for Creative Memories and I was looking for something more structure, more reliable, more fun and with less responsibility to fill my nights. Superstar would be perfect!

I LOVED the show and I had wanted to get involved with our little community theatre group - Picton Theatre Group - so after the day in the city with Dad, Mum, Steve and the girls, we caught the train home - I got off at Picton and Steve got off at Tahmoor withe girls...

I had a call-back later that night and was asked to consider sharing the role of Mary with another auditionee. It was however, the first night of three audition sessions - so things could quite possibly change...

I was still excited however. I had never been asked to consider accepting a lead role before - I had always played chorus or character support roles!

At the end of the day, the director, Peter Novakovich, chose Sarah over me for Mary - the woman whom I had been asked to consider sharing the role with. It didn't worry me in the slightest. Sarah and I became fast friends over the course of the show and beyond - she is still a great inspiration for me to this day...

And as it turned out, when Peter rang to explain that Sarah had been offered the lead role I in turn consoled him - "Its OK Peter. I just found out that I am pregnant with my third child - it would be very 'DaVinci Code' to have a pregnant Mary and I am fairly sure that you would want to avoid that from a directorial perspective!"

The following six months were some of the happiest of my life - I had resurrected my voice! Sure, I sang when I went to church, I had even been on the worship team a couple of times - but vocally, there was very little challenge in that.

It turned out that I was the only true soprano in the cast and so I carried the weight of the chorus harmony on my own - we had a couple of other young sopranos whose voices were still developing but didn't have the power of a late 20s trained voice - and Sarah lent an note or two off-stage where she could, but again, she tended towards an s2...

And of course, John 19, involved all sorts of avante-garde-style vocal gymanstics which pushed me vocally into areas that I had never been before.

It was a very exciting and liberating experience.

In 2006 I went on to do Les Mis with Peter - but this time with his own home-grown company WOFTAM in Campbelltown - my ALL TIME favourite musical - which I knew back to front but had never had an opportunity to see live. The only performance of Les Mis that I had seen was the 10th Anniversary recording from Albert Hall - but even that was enough to take my breath away...

Again I played chorus - I didn't actually audition as I was having breast-feeding issues with Caleb at the time and had decided - very reluctantly - to sit this show out - but when word got back to me that Peter had lost his only soprano - apart from the beautiful Wei who was playing Cosette, I contacted him and offered my help.

And the rest was history.

Again, Les Mis took me to heights of performance and vocal development and strengthening that I had never pursued before and my confidence soared - HOW ON EARTH had I chosen to walk away from this? Just opening my mouth and singing was SO fulfilling! I did not need a stage or an audience - just rehearsing in the bowels of the theatre as we warmed up was enough to make my heart soar!

I was determined to work in amatuer theatre for the rest of the kids young lives and then perhaps pursue a return to music studies at the Con in Sydney?

Three days after Les Mis closed I was hospitalised with the first of 16 suicide attempts in response to major depression, misdiagnosis and poor medication management...

And I have spent the past four years emerging from that black hole.

My marriage has fallen apart, my kids have been moved 500km away from me because I became too ill to care for them, the love of my life has remarried and it has now been revealed that the 14 year diagnosis of Bipolar was completely wrong and neither is the diagnosis of BPD right.

After an hour with my GP last Monday, another half an hour with the practice nurse and then a 15 minute conversation with my psychologist - it has been absolutely CONFIRMED that I never had Bipolar, or even a personality disorder. What I DID struggle with was major depression which is what led to the three original suide attempts that I had which was each a response to a major trauma and ensuing grief.

The subesquent 17 suicide attempts have been put down to medication reactions, sub-conscious placebo responses to diagnostic criteria, extreme confusion and depression.

I DO have a creative personality. And at times that may mean that I talk a mile-a-minute; stay up excessively late trying to work through an inspiring thought in my mind,; act gregariously because I have the capacity to FEEL so intensely; or act dis-jointedly because in my capacity to FEEL so intensely, I can access the FULL gamut of emotions...

And ALL of that can be worked on with increasing self-awareness and personal development....

And speaking of personal development...

A week ago I dropped into the ANU School of Music - thinking - "How cool would it be if I could re-audition for the BMUS and bring my studies to completion back here at the ANU where my academic journey all began".

So I made some enquiries and was given the head of the music program's email address - Alan.

Within less that 24 hours of my initial email, I received a response - and the academics are all still on holidays!

He has put me onto the voice teacher's websites and I am still waiting for a response from the soprano teacher - I am hoping to study under her for 12 months and then audition for the BMus for 2011.

HOWEVER, he as also offered to listen to me sing and give me appropriate tips and pointers as I seek to continue to develop my voice and prepare for the audition....

The HEAD of the ANU SOM wants to hear me sing! And he will be ON my audition panel come the end of the year - as will my voice teacher - if she does indeed accept me as a private student...

This year keeps getting better and better... dreams that I thought I would NEVER again have access to are once again resurfacing and I am realising that under God NOTHING is impossible if it is in line with His will...

"With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Mark 10:27