As well as singing and teaching and being a little bit obsessed with painting my nails, I also like to quill. If you don't know what quilling is, well you're not alone. Until a couple of years ago when i discovered fantastic paper artist Yulia Brodskaya I had never heard of quilling either. Her art is incredibly intricate and stunningly beautiful, and although the cards I make bare no resemblance to her three-dimensional paper artworks, she got me interested in what you can do with little strips of paper. I now make and sell greetings cards which feature quilled elements as well as snippets of vintage sheet music, the perfect way to unwind after a long day of rehearsals.

What do you do when you aren't singing?

Shop at ThePaperBird

Here are some of the varied responses from fellow singers posted on the Opera Talk facebook page:

• Ballina Gee Apart from earning a living to support my singing, I let go by doing vertical apparatus fitness and related classes.
  
• Eleanor Frances Waterpolo!  If angry bits in opera aren't enough to vent, it's the perfect outlet!
  
• Megan O'Leary photography and my regular Zumba fitness classes
  
• Mirella Reiche Horse back riding, tango dancing, reading, 'swimming'/ relaxing at the lake, walk in the forest, hang out with friends.
  
• Rochelle Hart Running, doing stuff with my dog, reading, watching movies. I also enjoying going out dancing with my husband and friends. And travel (when I can afford it). And ballet, which I'm taking up again soon after several years away.  I also am an (ex-)archaeologist. And I'm writing a novel between gigs.
• Caroline Parkes I earn my living by being a biomedical scientist in histopathology. As well as singing I love cooking and write a food blog.
• Laura Hudson I used to earn an extra living being a Chemical Engineer, until the singing took over and I made the choice. Now, to unwind, I'm an avid knitter and like to dance like a loon with whoever isn't too embarrassed by my funky moves!
• Colin Reed I used to earn my main living being an industrial development chemist, and then business manager. I still very occasionally supplement my singing income by doing some consultancy. Apart from that I grow stuff on an allotment, cook it afterwards, brew beer, cycle, try to stop my cat from destroying the house, and try to find time to do the BBC Music Magazine crossword.
  
• Helen Anne Gregory I'm a photographer and I knit, sew, embroider and make amigurumi crochet animals. In my last job at Garsington this summer I crocheted all my fellow cast members their animal characters as after show gifts. I also make to order and sell enough to keep me in beer most of the year round.
• Mari Wyn Williams I freelance and work for the bbc as a broadcasting assistant and sing for tourists at cardiff castle, it's fun and gives me plenty of performing practice! A box set is the best distraction for me when it's quiet or I'm away from home!
  

How about you? Comment with your favourite non-singing activities...

Well, what an exciting year it has been! 

I thought by the time I was 27 that I would be out of the habit of a September - July year but no, I still look forward to the summer holidays as much as ever! That comes mainly from the fact that this year has been rather hectic - new teaching contracts, opera projects all on top of buying a new house. 

In September  I started work at Cheltenham College teaching one-on-one singing lessons to students from 3rd to 5th form under the guidance of Gordon Busbridge, Head of Music. It has been a fantastic year with students making lots of progress. Sadly, Gordon is leaving this year after 20 years at the helm, but I am excited to start again in September under a new HoM and hope to be able to give my students lots of opportunities to perform and progress.

In September I also began working at Theatre Stars in Tewkesbury, a completely different stage school set-up with its own benefits and challenges. Working with three groups of children aged 6-14 was exciting and exhausting but the hard work all paid off when they performed their first Summer Showcase at the beginning of July to over one hundred proud parents. 

In February I was appointed as the singing teacher at Severn Vale School in Quedgeley and have had a wonderful time getting to know all the students and their eclectic music tastes. It is so refreshing to work with students who know what they like, and how they want to improve. There is some real talent at Severn Vale!

Talking of talent, my students at Stratford Music Centre have also had fantastic year with Emily Collins gaining a place at music college in London and Isabella Worrall making it through the semi-finals of a national singer-songwriter competition where she was up against artists from all over the country, of which she was one of the youngest. She performed brilliantly.

In April, I was fortunate enough to be invited back to work with Birmingham Opera Company of their latest project, Khovanskygate: A National Enquiry by Modest Mussorgsky. It was a brilliant experience with a phenomenal chorus and received rave reviews!

In June, Hannah Davey and I headed back to the Lake District for another relaxing/rehearsing break and a concert in the beautiful church at Irton and now we are at July! What a year!

In an attempt to make next academic year slightly less hectic, there has been some juggling of my timetable and some sad goodbyes this month. I am leaving Stratford Music Centre and Tewkesbury Theatre Stars and will miss all my students very much. There are also those in year 11 who are leaving school who have done incredible things this year and I wish them all the best with their futures in music. Happy Summer!

According to leading conductor John Lubbock "The Derek Paravicini Quartet bring a whole new dimension to popular music of the 20th century with their extraordinary musicianship and dazzling virtuosity" and I have to say that I agree. 

I have worked with classically trained soprano Hannah Davey on many occasions, including a concert in the Lake District this weekend, but hearing her sing jazz...well, that was a surprise to us all! She is equally at home singing both genres and can slip seamlessly between the two completely different disciplines. She has sung with Sir James Galway, Dame Emma Kirkby and The Orchestra of St John’s among many others, but Hannah has always had a love for singing jazz having grown up listening to the great singers including Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Diana Krall - and it shows. 

This weekend sees the launch of the Derek Paravicini Quartet official website and it is well worth a visit. Gorgeous sound clips, interesting biographies and of course the first place to find out where you can catch this exciting new quartet live. Their next concert will be a Music for Autism event at Dorchester Abbey on 14th June and I will definitely be there.

This quartet has a strong link with the charity Music for Autism, mainly because their pianist and leader of the quartet, Derek Paravicini, is autistic. According to the website Derek has been "dubbed ‘The Human iPod’ in the States, [as he] has a repertoire of tens of thousands of pieces – all learnt very rapidly, just by listening." His incredible improvisations and breath-taking technique have left audiences in awe all over the world, with over a million hits on Youtube and another million on TED.

The remaining members of the quartet are equally as thrilling. Ben Holder (violin) is one of the most gifted and exciting young jazz violinists in the UK and multi-award winning drummer Ollie Howell has Quincy Jones as a mentor and is the first jazz musician to be awarded the Sky Academy Arts Scholarship. 

I am so excited to see my friend Hannah Davey share another facet of her gorgeous voice and I fully anticipate that the Derek Paravicini Quartet will continue to take to world by storm. 

Congratulations to fellow RNCM graduate Soraya Mafi for becoming opera's New Face in the Telegraph this morning. Rupert Christiansen's article gives an insight into Soraya's journey to her professional debut at Grange Park. 

Soraya is currently singing the role of First Niece in Jeremy Sams’ new production of Britten’s Peter Grimes and in 2015 will make her ENO debut in Mike Leigh’s production of The Pirates of Penzance.