competitions

It's that time of year- all of the YAPlication deadlines have passed, and now I move onto more fun perusals of websites for competitions.
Foundations, competitions, big or small--it's always a large crapshoot about whether you should apply, whether you should send them the app. fee, decide to travel there, etc.

A singer I met this summer has made absolutely an art out of it- deciding which ones to do, what dates (because they SO often are the last 2 weeks of May, and all over the US), did they pick a lyric sop. winner last year? If so, she's not going. If they picked a guy, she'll think about paying for travel out there, but only if the first through third prizes are over 1,000 dollars.
It's so exact- and it has paid off for her, definitely.

I'm approaching it in a bit more fun way for me.
Do I want to go visit my friends in Chicago when this competition is there? Sure- why not? An excuse to maybe get into the qualifying round of a large intl. competition, plus get to hang out in their great apt. and revisit old times.

Besides the 3 I've already sung in this year,
I'm set for 2 more (in April...one local, one NY), and have applications in the completion stages for three more--but here is where I run into the problems with the month of May.

May 15th- our official last day at current-yap. I'll start the drive back cross-country then.
May that week: competition number one that I'm already signed up for and have their finals on the 19th IF I make it.
May 22/23: competition number two finals IF I make it.
May 24: want to be flying across the ocean to my "homeland".
May 25-Jun.8th- possibly hopefully auditioning for the head of "homeland" opera.
ALSO May25-Jun.8th- HOPING that I can convince the nice people at the Belvedere competition that they should add an audition location for preliminaries IN my homeland-killing 2 birds with..you get it.

After Jun.8th- wait to see if I get into the finals of either Placido's huge competition or the Belvedere (if they give me my requested city audition)...and ALSO begin my new summer/life SOMEWHERE in Germany!!!

You can see how lugging all 6-8 of my opera scores for competitions (it's a rule), plus two gowns and yes, a suitcase filled with 2 months of summer/homeland clothes and weird/European summer clothes may prove a bit difficult in this situation.

hmm...
Well, at least I'm having fun sorting it out now. Later I'll just have to show up and sing pretty!