Autobiography
Winner of the Times Educational Supplement Write Away Competition in Jan. 2006
Jan. 18, 2006— -- I am Jemma and I am immortal!
Music is my life and my life is music. My heartbeat is written on a stave, with crescendos and diminuendos, tacit bars and heart-stopping glissandos. But my breath is the libretto, with such glorious poetry and anarchic rhyme that I can't make sense of it at all.
My seminal moment came in the guise of a very talented pair of artists – Carlo Rizzi and John Caird – whose production of Verdi's Don Carlos brought my life to a resounding halt last September. It was like my very existence had been awaiting that meeting and that opera. In one afternoon they had shown me the meaning of life! All the musical forces came together to create an awesome experience just for me.
Music transports me to the court of King Philip, an alley in Verona or the farthest reaches of the universe before returning me to Victorian London, wartime France or my homeland today. Even in the dark of the night my music shines bright and fills the room with light and radiance. No sound is heard but music is blaring from my mind into the void. Daytime can be tiresome with its noisy light disrupting my mind's symphonic pleasures. If I were in St David's Hall I couldn't hear more beautiful music.
Sometimes I lie awake scratching out notes on parchment which only I will ever read or hear. My concerto for bassoon is multi-award winning and the critics raved about my Symphony in G. Perhaps only time will tell whether my Mozartian productivity is kept for posterity or binned by a future archivist. But then, since I am the only judge and jury in my mind, it is probably a foregone conclusion (though not necessarily!).
Written words are for me the glue which keeps my existence held fast in a semblance of stability. Without words, it would all come crashing round my ears, turning bright sunshine into darkest night. Poetry fills my soul with delightful hues of life's momentary escapes into bliss, and torment.
Language is my paint and my keyboard is my brush. With them I paint pictures of life's more interesting times and scenic views of the future. But what is my future?
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