My First Day

I would like to start out by introducing myself. I'm Matt Hollaway, a recent Music Business graduate of Radford University. To receive my diploma, I am required to complete a 320 hour internship in the music/entertainment industry. After speaking with my percussion instructor, Dr. Sanderl, he informed me that he had just the contact to set me up with. Before I knew it, I was chatting with Liz Lochbrunner about interning with Opera Roanoke. Our personalities instantly clicked, and in the next few weeks I found myself accepting an internship with them. I am definitely a firm believer in "things happen for a reason" and the phrase "it always works out."

My purpose of this blog is to share my experiences from day to day with Opera Roanoke so that the public might get a taste of what goes on behind the scenes. So without further adieux, here is my first day...

Today was my first day interning with Opera Roanoke in their administrative office.  I spent the first hour touring the building, meeting staff from the Center, and talking with Liz and vocal apprentice/staff member, Asherah (forgive me, dear, I am missing the spelling completely) to get to know them. 

My first task of the day involved brainstorming with Liz and Asherah on their new “end of the fiscal year” online campaign. We decided that we would show supporters/people of the community holding up chalkboard signs explaining why they supported Opera Roanoke with the hashtag “ISupportOpera.” My next task was to assist Bill with moving a keyboard from Opera Roanoke's production studio at the Jefferson Center. Shortly after, Asherah and I ran an errand to pick up supplies for the new campaign as well as lunch. In the early afternoon I started the adventurous project of organizing Opera Roanoke’s storage closet. Today I finished organizing video and record archives. I found a few surprises along the way, including a Mepistopheles Halloween costume and fake snow. During the final hours of the day, we began to brainstorm again on the new online campaign, deciding that we would have a separate hashtag and event for this upcoming Tuesday in the square (#ISupporttheArts) for the general public. Later we will launch the actual #ISupportOpera from the supporters of Opera Roanoke. 

Tomorrow I plan to help with the setting up of the countdown to our online campaign (hopefully we can start a local trend!). I will also update you on my journey into the storage closet of Opera Roanoke in the days to come.

Keep following my posts! Things are sure to get more interesting in near future!

--Matt Hollaway