In 2018, after nearly twenty years of hands-on daily care for  the aging thoroughbred racehorse, Guerro Negro,  I was seeking was a low-key diversion.  I was still processing the death of my beloved horse and my mother when a senior talent show on YouTube came to my attention.  This seemed like a good opportunity to get back on stage and sing without pressure of being opera-perfect!  It would be an occasion to wear one of the many evening gowns that still hung in my closet. Except when the dresses were taken out for photo shoots with the horses, the dresses had rarely been worn in the thirty years since my operatic  aspirations ended.

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That "senior talent show" turned out to be a pageant for women over sixty.  As a classically trained singer, I had always performed with a live accompanist, however that was not an option on July 7, 2018, when I competed in the Ms. Virginia Senior America Pageant in Falls Church, Virginia.  For the first time in my life, I sang with a recorded sound track instead of an accompanist and, as it is my practice to wear one my  hand-painted silk shawls for special performing occasions, the combination of visual art and musical performance in the talent competition served very well. I  was honored to bring home the title and crown "Ms. Virginia Senior America 2018."

 

Suddenly, instead of returning to my quiet life, I was preparing for the National Competition to be held in November in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  I had been quite straightforward  in selecting an aria which I remembered from my opera years for my talent performance in the Virginia Competition. Trusting that my past singing experience and artwork would be enough to garner a respectable presentation worked very  nicely for our small Virginia pageant.  For the National Competition, however, I would have to up my game.  I needed something spectacular and very different.

 

Combining singing, my visual artwork, and movement was my plan. Only after creating the music video for the event, did I realize that the orchestration was in a significantly higher key than the vocal score, thus requiring significant soprano pyrotechnics in performance!   On state at the National Competition,  my artwork was projected on huge screens while danced with huge silk paintings and sang the Evening Prayer from Humperdink's opera, Hansel and Gretel.   (Click on the music video line on the drop-down menu to watch hear and watch the visuals.) It was just the ticket and at the conclusion of five busy and exciting days of rehearsals and special events, my name was called as one of the top 10 contestants to enter the semifinal round.   I was delighted to be selected as 4th Runner Up in the National Senior America Contest.  It was a honor to finish in the  Top 5 at the Nationals!

 

Writing has been an avocation for my lifetime and after the adventures in pageantry, I was back at my desk, and set about completing Guerro Negro's comprehensive work, What if God Sent A Horse? which formalizes my entry into the world of published literature.  My experiences with women in pageantry and in community have been another enlightening opportunity and my personal experiences with women during my pageant adventures are the subject of my upcoming non-fiction work entitled,

Queen For A Day  -- A Memoir -- The Dark Side of Pageantry.