What are the odds, in a person's life, that two major, life changing events happen on the exact same day?

That was my case.

My teaching career began - from scratch and entirely out of the blue - 20 years ago today:

October 10th 2003 - as reported above, on the back of the badge that my boss had prepared for my first day of work.

Two days before, he had hired my 22-yr-old self as a singing teacher at the prestigious Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna (founded in 1615 by the Adriano Banchieri), thanks to a Conservatory professor (not even one of mine) who apparently had dropped my name in the right place, at the right time (a unique experience in my life, so far).

God knows what she had seen, in me: I had never, ever given a voice lesson before and I was desperately looking for a good teacher myself, for I felt like I was born to be the GOAT, yet desperately missing the most important piece of the puzzle of who I was destined to be: a real Maestro (the column placing makes the phrase ambiguous - I'll leave it that way).

In this headshot I am feeling proud and looking tan, but, if you look closer, that is also the terrified and exhausted face of a girl who knew she had just come back from her last summer at home with her dad.

Who, on that exact day, October 10th 2003, at 4 am, passed away.

It was a Friday.

My landlady in Bologna got the call from my one of my brothers and woke me up when it was still dark; I hopped on the first train to Puglia (a nine-hour ride, back then) and completely forgot to tell my boss that I wouldn't have made it to my first day, that day.

Everything I had ever called a family and that ever, to this day as I write, felt like one, to me, was forever gone. And at 22 I had no idea of how long "forever" lasted.

I had nothing in my hands. Except that new job, which I began the following week.

While putting this newsletter together, I even got to find one of my first, typewriter typed pay-checks: I clearly remember that, back in time, I earned €15 per hour.

Dad, just for the record, living without you and having to survive with no social skills in what turned out to be a not-so-professional environment I knew nothing about, was nothing less but a nightmare.

I have felt SO ALONE, ever since.

For the past twenty years, for endless hours, thanks to the hundreds of you who were there with me - right in the middle of my loneliness - I've been looking for the thoughts, words and sounds that could get the beauty I saw in Music, in myself an in yourselves come a little closer to reality.

Some of those words I've put into a book, many more are daily being found in an ever-expanding rendez-vous.

The friends I was never able to make amongst my colleagues, I have made them amongst the composers, librettists, characters.

What I've learnt is: whatever life entrusts you with, do it at your best and give it back improved even, or maybe especially, if you feel like it does not belong to you.

I have believed my little ship to have disappeared amongst the waves so many times,
but here I am, finally reunited with her whom I have been for so long desperately looking for:

La Maestra.

Ti voglio bene Papà, è andato tutto bene.

“extremely good at this” (Graham Vick)

"a fantastic coach, extremely helpful for young singers as well as experienced ones" (Barbara Hannigan)

“bringing the language, the music and the characters to life” (Paul Nilon)

“the foundation of a role” (Jennifer Rowley)

“magic conjunction of vocal technique, musical interpretation and building of the character: a radical rethink of the act of singing” (Anna Piroli)

“her incredible breadth of knowledge makes me feel entirely prepared” (Heather Lowe)

“magic effect on the voice and our art form” (Jessica Harper)

“opened up my voice, and a world” (Giulia Zaniboni)

“180° turn in my work with the singers” (Theophilos Lambrianidis)

"like four professionals in one" (Yiselle Blum)

“invaluable: she’ll make a role really succeed on stage” (Ariadne Greif)

“potentially life-changing” (Amy Payne)

“brings life to operatic drama” (Maria Sanner)

“enlightening, professionally and humanly” (Clara La Licata)

“thoroughly prepared and professional” (Marie Kuijken)

“truly unique method and insights” (Jasmine Law)

“a lingual and linguistic genius” (Peter Tantsits)

“entirely devoted to the art of Opera singing” (Ida Falk Winland)

“incredibly informed, consistent, knowledgeable” (Michael Corvino)

“carrying the torch of finest Italian Opera” (Nathaniel Kondrat)

“a crucial basis for all the singers” (David Cowan)

“a cure and a respect of the Music and the words’ musicality that can be learnt so deeply nowhere else in the world” (Matilde Bianchi)

"an unconventional guardian angel"

(Giulia Ferraldeschi)