Hello Everyone. Hope you are all doing well. I’m settled into the new house with Jon and am enjoying that we have some woods and a river at the end of our garden. It’s a really peaceful house. We feel like we got lucky with this one, as it’s got everything we need apart from a bath (I LOVE having baths). There always has to be a compromise and that was it. It’s 12 years since I’ve lived with a partner so I’m getting used to not having as much independence as I am used to, but it’s going really well. We are both finding our groove.

I’m also getting into my groove with my singing too. I’m working a lot for Rural Arts this month in Yorkshire. This time last year I was just getting going to get myself out there and paying for and organising everything myself, and this year I’m getting booked to just go and sing, and am not having to do the organising. A part of me hated it last year because it was so hard to start again and so stressful to know where to go and what to do, but I knew I had to do it. Noone was going to knock on my door and start offering me work. Plus, I love now that I’m getting to be in different places. I like travelling. I want to travel more again now. I was in Thirsk and Newton-le-Willows near Bedale last week, tonight I’m in Stillington and tomorrow in Clapham, and next week I’m in Whitby. I’ll definitely go up early and get myself some chips from the chippy and have a bit of time by the sea. For years, I’ve wanted nothing more than my singing to get going, and nothing makes me happier really. I see every concert now as a chance to sing for a new set of people and to keep getting my name out there. I also love that I get to do ‘ME’.

Someone asked me the other week why I wasn’t singing in opera houses, and there are a few reasons. When I left The Flemish Opera in Antwerp in 2016 I went to busk instead, and in the 2 years I was in London I didn’t get one audition for opera. Too many people going for so few jobs and I had no network there. I just carried on in my own lane. I worked at the opera in Monaco for a month in 2018, and had a great time, but by the end of the month I could see why I knew it wasn’t for me anymore. There’s just always politics going on and people worried about whether they will get the next job too, which in the end just destroys any love you have for what you do. There are no opportunities right now in that way for me, so I either do ‘me’, or I do something else. I love what I do now, so I am proud and glad that I kept following my own path and doing my own thing. I’m getting busier which is what I have always wanted, and a lot of it is from word of mouth. The best form of advertising.

Plus, I love being on the front line making connections with people. I hear all sorts of stories and people share parts of themselves with me, and I really appreciate and value that. I just signed into write this next blog post and saw this comment from 3 weeks ago when I sang in Grassington:

‘We both loved your performance for Robert last night in Grassington. We live opposite him in Burnsall, but Pam lived in Todmorden when I first met her. Her father Leslie Griffiths ran the Further Education Colleges in the Calder Valley. Her mother from Colne, who Robert and Alison knew, was the daughter of Opera Singer (England’s Caruso was his nickname) John Harrison who made the first HMV opera record and took opera to Rhodesia and Australia and was a friend of Nelly Melba. His other daughter Phyllis Harrison sang on the radio and with ENSA during the war. All John’s records, press cuttings and photos are now in the archives in Preston. Hope you find this interesting. We’ll come to hear you again. John and Pam (nee Griffiths) Clark’

I would love to see those archives, and enjoy so many personal stories from people. Every time I stand in front of an audience I don’t know what I’m going to get back. I don’t know what I’m going to sing either, and I don’t know what we’ll create together. This gives me the nerves and the worry, but every performer goes through some kind of nerves and worry. It’s in our make up. I get nervous because I care and I want to make a difference to people.

After the Newton-le-Willows concert I got this too, and they’ve already been in touch about going there with ‘A Spoonful of Julie’. I’ve also set a date now at Skipton Town Hall too on October 14th for it and am waiting to hear back from the Bollington Arts Centre to set a date with them. I’ve also been asked to sing something called ‘Concert on the Hill on July 1st. The only thing I know is that it’s a Fireworks concert in 16 acre grounds, so I’m looking forward to that too, and the Yorkshire Proms at The Piece Hall on July 23rd. I’ll be getting my ballgown out a few times this year.

Me and Jon have been enjoying doing lots of Soup and Singalong sessions too. We’ve done quite a few in the Yorkshire Dales, through Skipton Town Hall, and the Brighouse and Rastrick fund have funded 5 too. One of the highlights for me was seeing a lady get up dancing but needed help to get up, and just letting go with the biggest smile on her face. I loved it. I’m chatting to Brighouse soon to see about funding to go into some schools. This is something I’m being asked to do too. Go into a school for a full day and sing and work with the children. I’m down in St. Alban’s at the end of the month and have been asked into a primary school in May for a day too. I just see kids (and people in general) don’t sing enough, and it’s so good for us, and we can all do it too. Grassington have asked me too, to do a session for children and the elderly the day before I sing in the Town Hall in April. I’m just really grateful for every opportunity.

We are enjoying the radio show too. ‘Classical for the People’. I’d wanted to do a radio show for a while and it just came on my path and I jumped at it. I’m glad I’m doing it with Jon (and his Basil Brush corny jokes that do make me cringe sometimes), and it’s making us listen to more music and appreciate more, plus when others asks for requests we also get to hear other stuff and tell stories about why that person has requested it. We’ve got a guest on this Sunday which adds another dynamic to it, and we just take our dog with us every time too so he gets to be a DJ too. For anyone that wants to tune in it’s every other Sunday from 4pm until 6pm at http://www.phoenixfm.co.uk

It’s funny how life turns out. When I left my husband at the age of 30 and went to work at Glyndebourne I finally started to live the life I’d dreamed of living. Working in opera houses, hearing amazing orchestras, working with fantastic directors and singers and sucking it all up like a sponge. When I moved to Amsterdam I loved it and could never see myself back in the UK. Life was, in my eyes, full of adventure. I was getting work in opera houses there, and had a Dutch boyfriend and loved what I was creating. The relationship ended, and life moved me onto Belgium, for The Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent. Again, life was exciting. Living what I wanted and actually having a permanent job doing it with a regular salary. I still couldn’t see myself back in the UK. No way. Then singing on the streets started, because I’d lost my love of singing, and I needed to do something to face all the fears and anxieties I had over just singing a song. I had completely lost that person singing Julie Andrews, not thinking about whether it was good enough. Being on the streets changed everything. New opportunities came along and more and more connections with every day people happened and I started to enjoy singing again, or at least felt I had something to offer people. I started to sing at parties and hire theatres and I dreamt of going to New York and raised money to do it (I’d never raised a penny before), and before I knew it I’d left my job in Belgium, come back to London to sing on the streets, and go to New York. Everyone said I was mad to leave a secure job but my heart was calling me home. The next few years were full of singing lessons and mentoring from an 80 year old man who heard me busking and offered to teach me (which is one of the best things that has happened to me), and then I got rid of most of my stuff, became a soprano, a suitcase and a rucksack and started this blog, to write about travelling around singing, and living for 10 months on and off in New York. Never did I ever think I would end up back in the North of England. I did everything I could to stay away. Not that I think the North is rubbish, but I wanted adventure and I wanted different than what I had grown up with. There’s a whole world out there to be seen and experienced.

I reckon I’ll be travelling more too again soon. Start small, and let it organically grow, and that’s what I’m doing. Let it go where it wants to go. Do ‘ME’ and see where doing ‘ME’ goes. I have a partner now to think of too, and his son, and a dog. Nothing stopping me. If you want to know where I’m singing take a look at my website at http://www.iamnicolamills.com and follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Opera for the People.