This month we asked our bloggers to respond to the following question: When have you used your ingenuity, creativity, and willpower to create an opportunity that is in line with your values? What role did your mindset/the mental game play in accomplishing this? What advice can you give to musicians to forge ahead and open doors for themselves?
It has been a very busy spring so far, and my husband and I always try to get away for a little break around April to recharge ‘the batteries’ so we can make it through the busy months of April, May and June. I had also been missing my sister who recently moved to Honolulu, so we decided to go visit her and her husband there for a few days. We called them to catch up and plan our time their together, and they mentioned that they had just been at a party with friends. My sister’s husband is also a musician and, after moving to Honolulu, he has gotten to know many people in the musical community there. I asked him if he knew anyone there at the Hawaii Opera Theatre, and he did. He put me in contact with him, and I was able to set up an audition during the time I was there.
So often I think to myself “how am I going to get auditions and be heard,” and sometimes the contacts to do so are right under my nose. It had never occurred to me to ask members of my own family to hook me up with a new contact. I think it is important in trying to open new doors for yourself to think about even the most obvious people in your life and who they might know. Often being introduced by a friend can be a very non-confrontational way to make new contacts, and the audition situation I got was very friendly and low pressure compared to some cattle calls we have all been a part of before. It’s fun to think about all the great people in my life and how they might want to help me out, because I know I would help them out as well.
– Karen Hogle Brown, Soprano
