The solstice always fills me with energy as I know that the calendar year is coming to an end and the seasons are changing with the promise of warmer weather and longer days in the near future. And with that energy, I have decided to launch a new project.
Last summer, I was very fortunate to participate in the inaugural year of Mozart in the Knobs, a two week festival based on the border of Indiana and Kentucky which focused solely on the music of Mozart and culminated with a fully staged performance of Don Giovanni. I auditioned on bass, but when I got there I discovered that the collaborative pianist had called out the night before the festival started, leaving the opera singers in a pickle. Basically, without a pianist, rehearsals were going to be impossible. I spoke to the director and said I could sightread, and I ended up becoming a repetiteur for the first time in my life. I absolutely loved every second of it!
In addition to playing piano for opera rehearsals, I was honored to play for a benefit concert with 7 singers who had each selected a Mozart aria to perform for donors. And this is where the journey truly begins! I had accompanied singers before, but with a background in strings playing and extensive work with brass players thanks to living with a French horn player throughout college, I realized my knowledge of how to accompany vocalists was lacking.
So, during that first week of the festival, I reached out to my now voice teacher, Laurie Nelson, asking to work with her with the purpose of learning how to better accompany singers. I began taking voice lessons in September 2023, and can now say that I’ve learned so much from Laurie about how the voice works that I’m finally confident in launching this new project!
As of November, I have been recording piano accompaniment tracks of music that is lesser known or by underrepresented composers. I’m focusing on music for low voice (hello, fellow mezzos!) because the lower keys are generally harder to find, at least in my experience. My tracks are available to listen to on my YouTube channel (Wendy Hellmann Arrangements) and are for sale in mp3 format on both Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct.
This has been such a wonderful journey to embark on. Over the past few years, I’ve had a few students graduate, and there have been many soul searching discussions about what choosing music as a career means. And the reality is, it’s tough. Since I’ve graduated from college, I’ve seen far more friends and colleagues switch careers than those who have successfully landed jobs as full time musicians. It’s easy to lose motivation and hope when it feels like you’re getting nowhere, even when you might be teaching and gigging and talking about music full time like myself. But the wonderful thing about music is that it is such a VAST field that is always evolving, all you have to do is find your niche (which can be equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming). And this niche that I have found has reignited that fire in me to keep doing what I love doing, which is to play and collaborate.
With that, please check out my tracks! Subscribe to my channel (it really helps a lot) and please comment if you have any suggestions for piano accompaniment tracks you would like to have recorded!
Happy New Year,
Wendy