Kia Ora!

2010 begun with festivities in the Dunedin Town Hall with the Southern Sinfonia's 'AMI Last Night of the Proms'.

It was a fun night and terrific to sing with Rebecca Ryan. We sung together when we were at high school in Invercargill and then again recently in the University of Otago's professional opera 'Carmen'.

We sang the Flower Duet from Lakme and the Letter Duet as well as Rossini's Cat Duet. The concert was loads of fun and I must say that I do enjoy singing anthems from time to time and some of the famous Proms songs such as 'Rule Brittania'.

2010 will see me return to Dunedin for a three year stint at the University of Otago Law School. I will be researching for the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre. During this time I will be working with Isabel Cunningham at the University of Otago School of Music and developing a second Spanish concert and an English concert.

Isabel Cunningham is a stunning teacher and the techinique that she teaches allows the voice to remain fresh. I am still so happy that I did my Masters with Isabel and Terence Dennis at the school in 2004-2006. Both classical music concerts will be my focus, singing wise, and I intend to really work the voice up again and concentrate on technique. It is a real shame to hear people that have lost their voices and it is not necessary. Technique is the answer.

In addition, I will be creating a concert of peace songs from 1960 until the present. This peace song concert has involved me researching alternate tunings for the guitar on the web and I am having a great time with Joni Mitchell's tunings. Obviously, the 'peace songs concert' will not be classical and I will make sure that it challenges my guitar playing instead and allows me the chance to return my voice, albeit for a short while, back to the folk style that I love.

Anyways, welcome to 2010 and do look on my video player in the second half of the year as I will make sure I write some new music and pop some up there to add some new content. Some of the new content will be archive material that I have to put up and some of the content will be new music that I am writing at present.

Deborah