New Year's Expectations

We're a month into 2012 already, and according to a certain misreading of the Mayan calendar we all have a little less than eleven months to live.  (Insert comical panic here.)  But I'm looking forward to the months before our eventual demise.  In 2011, we finished the full recording of the "radio play" part of the upcoming virtual production of Valentine, and we're nearly finished with the editing and sound design as well. (A special shout-out here to our Pdx sound engineer, Justin Phelps, who has been a super trooper through this whole process.)  For the visual art, we've recruited an amazing illustrator (soon to be announced).  I'm very excited to see the charming characters that our singers created take on new life.  And I can't wait to post sketches (maybe even the occasional sneak peek - shhh)as the project reaches completion.  There are new challenges ahead as we finish our first original opera, of course, but looking back on how far we've come already... it's easy to feel that 2012 is going to be especially excellent.  (A very belated) Happy New Year, Everyone!