Day 139: Exceeding expectations

Had the privilege of watching a true craftsman at work all day today as one by one she transformed people  she worked with. With a great deal of encouragement, humor and expertise she managed to elicit the very best from each individual in the room. More than once, I was moved to tears both by the performances I witnessed and by the grace with which this fantastic voice coach worked.

My first encounter with Monica Einarsson was in 2002 in a Swedish reality series called Fame Factory. The premise was quite similar to SYTYCD but instead of dancers, it featured singers who had been selected by audition and whom we got to follow over the course of a season as they competed to stay in the show. Like SYTYCD, each week a singer was eliminated. Fame Factory played for four seasons and was aired daily which meant that you got to follow the budding singers and the Fame Factory personnel quite closely. Einarsson stood out among the staff for the extraordinary work she did and for her generous and sympathetic style. Although I do not have great aspirations to perform, deep down I always harbored the fantasy that someday, maybe, I would get to work with her.

That day was today. And the title of this blog says it all.