juliahendrikmusic

So it's official.

I now have a music blog, also through Blogspot...
www.juliahendrikmusic.blogspot.com

...and a brand-new music profile on MySpace.
www.myspace.com/juliahendrikmusic

For those who aren't necessarily in the know, much of the last year of my life has been spent towards achieving a lifelong dream: the production of an album of original songs. I'm almost there. Now it's just getting the critical pieces in place to allow this album to be publicized and shared in this technologically driven society.

Oh. And if you're wondering why it's 'Julia Hendrik', here's the scoop:

When I was a little girl, I loved the idea that authors wrote under pen names; that actors performed under stage names; that a person's identity could be something completely different in a public forum than it might be in private. Also, knowing that I wanted to eventually assume my husband's name, I spent long hours thinking about what my alias might be, should I ever pursue a career in the arts that might make me publicly recognizable. I wanted a professional name that would still be very personal, but memorable and interesting as well.

Hendrik is my father's middle name. Growing up, my siblings and I had often heard the story of how when my parents met, my father was calling himself Hendrik - the thinking being that his Estonian first name, Jaan (pronounced the same way as 'yawn') was too often mispronounced. Interestingly enough, my mother, within their first couple of dates, asked my father what his family called him, and decided that she, too, would call him Jaan, not Hendrik.
Foreshadowing, perhaps, their future?

Besides having similarities to the name Jimi Hendrix, a legendary musical great; besides being easily pronounceable; besides the obvious nod to my Baltic heritage; besides all of these things, assuming the name Hendrik also felt like a part of me, a part of my history. It is also a permanent tie to my childhood, to my family, regardless of what my married name might turn out to be. Thank goodness for that, retrospectively, and also in looking ahead to the time when my surname will hopefully change once more.

Plus, I can't tell you just how my dad's eyes twinkled when I officially asked him if he would be okay with me using his middle name as my professional name.

Thus, Julia Hendrik it is.