Um, apparently this is actually happening

I’m still not entirely clear on how this happened.  But apparently it did.  OK, technically it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen because it’s in calendars and there’s advertising.  And I’m going to be rehearsing.  Perhaps I should explain.

There is an initiative here at MIT called Artists Beyond The Desk.  It’s an awesome thing and somehow I’m a part of it.  When I started here at MIT (way back in July) I knew that I wanted to perform in this series, but as life started catching up with me (3 memorial services in 3 states in 2 months, other concerts, Geoff graduating, etc.) I didn’t think I’d be able to do it.  At least not right away.

Then they had one opening left in the Fall cycle.  10/23/15.  And nobody wanted it.  Or was available.  And so people said, “Hey, Kelly, wanna sing?”  And I said, “Sure, find me a pianist.”  The part I left out was, “who wants to play for free for an hour in the middle of the day on a Friday, with me.”  Those are not small caveats, people.

Someone took me seriously and got me some names as it became clearer and clearer that nobody else was going to pick up the slot.  So on Friday (last Friday) when I was, you know, singing in a concert, I got an email confirmation from this amazing pianist that she’d play with me…

So, I’m singing in a concert.  Practically a recital.  And I found out about it on Friday.  As in, this past Friday, 10/16.  A day when I already had a concert to sing in.  As a soloist.

And I have an awesome pianist to collaborate with.  And she’s playing the J.S. Bach partita in B-flat major.  Because she’s fantastic.

Also, I haven’t exactly met her yet.  That happens tomorrow.  Does this only happen to me or does this happen to other people?  That’s the part I can’t figure out.

Please come to the concert?  There will be Bach, and lots of other stuff.  We haven’t figured the rest out yet.  Maybe Mozart, Handel, and a few other dead white men.  Also spirituals, Gershwin, and Leonard Cohen.  Because that’s what happens when you let me pick my own rep.  I sing the stuff nobody pays me to sing.

It’ll be 40-50 minutes long and I can promise you that the pianist will be amazing and that I’ll be… amusing.

Tell your friends.

~Kelly