Who/What/When/Why/Where

I'm going to Italy for a month this summer! Here's the lowdown:

Who:  me, along with two other students from Western. We will be working with other students (most of them probably from U of I, but I'm not entirely certain) when we get there and start the program. I think there will be about 20 of us.

What:  I'm going for a summer program for young opera singers, directed by Professor Sylvia Stone from the University of Illinois. Here is some information copied directly from Scuola-Italia's website:  "Come to Sant’Angelo in Vado to enhance your singing and performing skills and to develop your fluency in the Italian language. This program is designed for emerging opera singers who wish to have experience studying and performing in Italy, and who are anxious to improve their Italian language skills. It provides bel canto vocal training and coaching of Italian operatic repertoire with an international faculty, and includes public concerts in historical theatres in and around Sant’Angelo in Vado. Students receive two weekly voice lessons and regular musical and Italian diction coachings of Italian repertoire with faculty or guest maestri. Elements of acting and character development will be addressed daily by our Italian stage director in stage rehearsals on the stage of Teatro Zuccari.. The thrust of the program is to broaden the singer's repertoire, improve Italian language skills, develop his/her stage artistry, improve audition skills, and to offer performance experience in Italy.

The instructors of Scuola Italia’s language program offer an intensive course which equips the singer with a thorough grounding in the Italian language. The teachers are graduates in Modern Languages and Humanities and highly skilled in modern teaching methods of Italian as a foreign language."

When:  I'll be gone for the month of June, with a couple extra days before and after (to allow for layovers, etc.).

Why:  When I was in the depths of my college search and was considering U of I, I learned that Professor Stone (the head of the voice program there) was the director of this summer program in Italy. I had known long before that that I wanted to travel the world, and Italy is definitely included in that. Once I learned of the program, I knew it was something I should do at some point during my college career. However, I definitely did not think that it would end up being the summer after my freshman year! Nevertheless, the opportunity presented itself, and I decided it would be prudent to take it (especially since I had already taken some Italian language courses online last summer).

Where:  The four weeks of the program are in Sant'Angelo in Vado, which is located in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, in the Marche region (if Italy were divided into north and south halves, it would be near the southern end of the north half, nearer to the east coast than the west).

Also, let it be known that the header picture is not my own (obviously, since I'm not there yet!) It's supposed to be a view of a waterfall that appears to me to be man-made in Sant'Angelo in Vado. I found it in a good ol' Google search.

I'm going to try to give regular updates once I begin my travels, with pictures and maybe possibly some videos. Dare I say vlog??

Thanks for reading if you've made it to the end of this novel, and I hope you enjoy sharing in my adventures!