Week 22

Wednesday, February 11th, 2015

Start: 9:45am
End: 5:00pm
Time: 7.25 hrs.

     I went to Iolanta/Bluebeard's Castle yesterday with my friend Grace and it was AMAZING. Here are a few pictures! It was actually spectacular. This was the opera that I was the most excited for this season and it was everything that I expected it to be and more! This was also Grace's first opera so that made it really fun too-- to also watch someone fall in love with opera for the first time (which she TOTALLY did). Anyway, today was a little slow in the office, but I think that's my fault. I'm fasting in order to prepare for an upcoming retreat which is tomorrow, so I was a lot slower than usual. In general I made a few name tags, wrote up some thank you letters for donations, and continued working on the master posts. Even the social media meeting today was super short since it was mostly master posts and we didn't have a staff meeting today.

    Just as a warning, I may stop posting blogs here from now on or just may post less often since it's no longer mandatory. So if anyone is reading this and would like to ask me any questions about my internship, feel free to contact me at KatCoo@bergen.org!

Week 21

Wednesday, February 4th, 2015
Start: 10:00am
End: 5:00pm
Time: 7.00 hrs.

     Finally, a normal day at internship when I'm not all around New Jersey and New York! Today I just went straight to the Guild and even though I was just assigned one long chore to do, it was nice to be back in the swing of things (even though the musical is not anywhere close to being over).

     Stuart emailed me earlier this week talking about cataloging a few DVD's and I was sorta terrified when I heard this because I thought that he was referring to the DVD's I had alphabetized earlier in the year and that would take forever to catalog. But luckily, he explained everything to me and even though 133 DVD's is still a lot to handle, it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Here's a picture of all of my DVD's after they were organized and cataloged! And cataloging, to be honest, wasn't even that bad because I had to watch each one (only a few seconds of each) so it was interesting to get a small taste of each opera. I wish I had time to watch all of them!

     During my lunch break I did some Class Council stuff, specifically drafting a few emails for the upcoming fashion show. The way the Guild conducts themselves has actually helped me very much in how to be a good leader who is direct, to-the-point, and very efficient with her time. After drafting the emails, it was time for our Social Media Meeting. Along with laying out how the rest of the week should go, we also started to look ahead at March since February is so short and although it's just started, it's going to be over in a second! March is Women's History Month and we're planning on showcasing famous conductors, composers, and administrators who are women. I'm excited!

     It was announced at our Staff Meeting that ticket requests for March are due this Friday. I really want to see the Double Bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci! When I was a sophomore, I played the Intermezzo to Cavalleria Rusticana with my orchestra at MSM and I fell in love with it, it's such a beautiful piece. In fact, here's a link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OvsVSWB4TI We also discussed how the Guild created a new mission statement and the way they came up with it is actually very interesting. First, they came up with a 15-word statement, then 50, 100, 250, and 500, and the longer it got, the more in-depth they went about the mission which I really like the idea of. Also, our new tagline is: "Enriching people's lives through opera"

     But back to organizing these DVD's! I have a bit of a dust allergy so that's been bothering me today but I'll get through it!

Week 20

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

Start (pt. 1): 8:00am
End (pt. 1): 11:00am
Start (pt. 2): 11:30am
End (pt. 2): 5:00pm
Time: 8.50 hrs.

     I wasn't expecting to come into internship or even go to school today because the snow storm was supposed to be really bad but nothing really happened, we only got about 4-5 inches of snow. So with that being said, after yesterday's "storm," everything is back to normal so I went to school for our last rehearsal before the sitzprobe. To be honest, the orchestra part as a whole is a lot harder than it usually is and a lot of juniors who were in pit last year are now seniors and can't be a part of pit so there are a lot of people who don't really have the hang of being in pit yet (it's a lot more different than being in an orchestra since you have to be a lot more flexible and responsive) so I was nervous about today's rehearsal but it went surprisingly well! A few singers, Ms. Crochet the choreographer, and Brianna who's one of the Musical Directors were all there so even though we did a lot of talking, we got about a third of the show done! The sitzprobe tomorrow should go pretty smoothly (hopefully!). But on a much brighter note, I think I'm really improving on bass clarinet!

     When I came into the office today I found a lovely present on my desk: two tickets to see Iolanta/Bluebeard's Castle on February 10th! Personally, this is the opera I've been most excited to see so I'm really counting down the days until I can watch it (this will have been my eighth opera!)! Before I got to work, I talked to Jane a bit, specifically about the fact that I was called to have an interview with the people from National Youth Orchestra. I didn't get this last year (even though my mom swears that I did), so it must be a good sign that I got it this year! Jane and I rehearsed a few interview questions so I feel pretty ready. It's a Skype interview scheduled for 6:30pm tonight. After working a bit on the master posts, I went to the social media meeting where we finished up plans for January then started to think about what we're gonna do for February. We're planning on doing a Black History Month theme, so I think that should work out well.

I'm almost done with all of the master posts for 2015, this is pretty hard work!

Week 19

Wednesday, January 21st, 2015

Start (pt. 1): 8:00am
End (pt. 1): 11:00am
Start (pt. 2): 11:45am
End (pt. 2): 5:00am
Total: 8.25 hrs.

     Last night I watched The Merry Widow with my mom and I really liked it! As I explained in an earlier post, it's a sort of hybrid between a musical and an opera so I went more out of curiosity and although I wasn't the hugest fan, I can easily say that I really liked it for what it was. Here are a few pictures (I don't know why they have to lined up like this, I couldn't get it to look nice.)!
   
     Anyways, today was supposed to be a regular day time-wise, but after spending MLK Day transposing the bassoon parts of Kiss Me Kate to bass clarinet and listening to all the songs, I realized that I really needed to practice with the orchestra a little more, especially since the sitzprobe is right around the corner. Mr. Lemma also wanted me to come in as many times as I could so it was a win-win situation. Rehearsal was ok, but overall very fun! We sightread the last few pieces which was rough, but I really enjoy pit and I had a really good time so no worries! I'm just really glad that I'm able to play in pit this year in the first place. :)

     So when I went to see The Merry Widow yesterday, I saw Stuart and he told me about the name tags I made earlier this school year and how they need some revising. So as soon as I got to the office, after asking Stuart how he liked last night's show (he thought the same things that I did), I fixed the name tags. The things that needed fixing were that they wanted the names to also be on the back of the name tag and that there were some new students who needed name tags. Printing was a pain so that took about an hour.

     By then, it was time for the social media meeting so we planned posts for the rest of the month. Our film campaign is going so well, I'm so happy about that! :) My Silence of the Lambs post was also decently popular-- I have to remember to retweet that! The staff meeting afterwards was nice, short and sweet. Naomi needed someone to staple a few booklets for her so I offered to help and it didn't take very long so I was glad to help!

     For now, it's off to continue working on those master posts!

Week 18

Wednesday, January 14th, 2015

Start: 9:45am
End: 5:00pm
Time: 7.25 hrs.

     In general I felt a little groggy today but I'm glad that I didn't let that get in the way of getting stuff done today! Jane contacted me earlier this week about how she sent in my recommendation letter for NYO so we talked about that for a while after I got settled in. Thinking about it now, I'm really glad that I've been able to meet experienced and knowledgeable people like Jane at my internship!

     If I haven't mentioned this already, I've started a new project for the social media team where I take the operas of next season and, using the dates of the operas' world premieres, Met premieres, and composers' birthdays, make a "Master Post Calendar" that people can use in the next season (so sad that I won't be here to post them!). Hopefully next year's intern will not take it for granted (hello, btw, if you happen to be reading this)! Anyway, I was working on that for a while and finished the posts for September when Kyle came and we went to the OLC to set up for Aardvarks. I also had to print out the rental signs and post those up around the 6th floor and outside of the Rose Building too.

     After eating a quick lunch, I continued working on the master posts until the Social Media Meeting. Our #OperaFlicks and #OpDopps trends for our "Opera goes to the Movies" campaign in January are both going really well and are pretty popular! We planned a few more posts for the week during the meeting then that was about it.

     The rest of the day I wrote master posts and I was also invited to be featured on the MetGuild Twitter and Facebook again! I was asked what my favorite #OperaFlick, a movie with an opera in it, was and I said Silence of the Lambs (which is my favorite movie). Frederika's music box plays a tune from the Magic Flute and comparing the two plots, it does make a somewhat interesting parallel!

Week 17

Wednesday, January 7th, 2015

Start: 9:45am
End: 5:00pm
Time: 7.25 hrs

     I came into the office today and worked on a task that Kyle had introduced to me before the break which was to make signs for all of the upcoming events that were going to happen in the OLC during 2015. There are five main groups who rent out the OLC space: Music for Aardvarks, The Sierra Club, The Martina Arroyo Foundation, Session Symphony, and the Women Photographers Club. Juilliard may also be renting out the space, but from what I've heard in meetings, they seem to be a little unorganized about it so none of their rental times are really registered yet so I didn't have to make any rental signs for Juilliard. In order to know what signs to make, I had to access the public calendar and input the right times and dates onto each sign.

     Even though I got into Columbia, my application process isn't done yet! I am applying for an apprenticeship position as Orchestra Manager in the National Youth Orchestra sponsored by Carnegie Hall and I asked Jane to write one of my recommendations (I also asked Doc and Mr. Lemma). Since the application is due the 16th and the letters are due the 23rd, Jane asked if we could take some time to talk about the application and what she needed to write for me, but we decided to talk about it after the Community Engagement Meeting.

     Before I talk about how my meetings went, I have some good news! Starting in February. I'll be able to get free tickets each month to any opera I want! I was a little too late on the January ticket requests, but that's fine because Kyle gave me two tickets to see The Merry Widow on January 20th, and I'm so excited! I'm going to go with my mom. For February I requested tickets for the double bill, Iolanta/Bluebeard's Castle for February 10th so hopefully I can get those!

     I feel like the Social Media Meeting went a lot better than usual today (not that they're usually bad). We started brainstorming ideas of how we could make January themed. We decided since the Gold Globes were happening soon, we would make it themed about movie stars. Amanda actually came up with a few combinations of opera composers and their "celebrity doppelgangers" and they're all surprisingly accurate and really funny! We started #OpDopps (opera doppelgangers) on Twitter and Facebook-- this month's posts should be really fun! In the Community Engagement Meeting, we talked about the usual stuff.

     Today left me very excited because I was given the list of the 2015-16 season (It's top secret right now, and for a few more weeks so I can't tell you what's on it)! In order to prepare for the upcoming season, I had to make a list of the opera's premiere dates, Met Opera premiere dates, and birthdays of the opera's composers. The next season looks amazing, and I'm so glad that I'm staying the city for college so that I could watch some of them!

Week 16

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Happy New Year's Eve!