Katy Dickinson

Opera Girl

My 19-year-old daughter Jessica is in Washington D.C. (Indian Head, Maryland anyway) preparing to sing in her first professional opera on Tuesday night, as part of the Saltnote Stageworks festival this month. I think the first of the five shows in which she appears is Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) by Giacomo Puccini. The roles keep shifting around but as of today Jessica is scheduled to play a combined role of The Mistress of Novices and the Abess in Suor Angelica. She is also in the chorus for Carmina Burana, Porgy & Bess (Concert Version), Mozart/Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and she plays a Genii in Mozart's The Magic Flute. I am happy that Jessica is keeping up her blog so I know what is happening. It is very interesting reading about her working to develop her music and roles. Some of the video clips are amazing.

When Jessica called tonight, she sounded excited but very tired. We will talk more tomorrow night. Jessica talked about how hot is was and how big the bugs are. As she says, when rehearsing in an outdoor theater at night, the stage lights attract big bugs, and who is on the stage? The chorus! She liked bugs until they started flying into her face while she was singing Carmina Burana and could not get away.

We will be in Washington D.C. to hear Jessica sing later this month.

Posted at 10:06PM Jun 15, 2008 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

MAGIC in Newsweek

On 21 May, I wrote about the new MAGIC girls' mentoring program working with The Girls' Middle School (GMS) in Mountain View, CA. Last week, I was pleased and surprised to find MAGIC mentioned in the June 16, 2008 issue of Newsweek in an article called "Revenge of the Nerdette". I knew about the article in advance because my daughter Jessica was interviewed for it (alas, she did not get mentioned). In fact, I wrote a blog entry on 10 April called "How to Talk with the Press" because Jessica called me for advice on that subject. (Jessica called from from Carnegie Mellon and left me a voice mail message, something like: "Mom, Mom Newsweek wants to interview me, what do I do?".)

"Revenge of the Nerdette" By Jessica Bennett and Jennie Yabroff is interesting and worth reading. MAGIC got mentioned in the last paragraph:

Outreach programs such as TechBridge, an after-school workshop for middle- and high-school girls, and MAGIC (More Active Girls In Computing), a national mentoring program for aspiring computer scientists, are among the dozens of programs aimed at getting girls to think about futures in science and technology. The Nerd Girls also conduct weekly outreach: "We try to give them real examples of what engineers do," says Panetta. "You love watching special effects in 'Harry Potter'? That's an engineer. You like the iPhone? An engineer made that. Cheerleading? Dancing? How about sports engineering?" Because you know, girls: the geeks really are inheriting the earth.

We on the MAGIC core team are still forming the program. It is gratifying if strange to get such high visibility press so early. Not that I am complaining!

Posted at 09:39PM Jun 15, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |