HTH

Sheila

Main Entry: tes·si·tu·ra
Pronunciation: "te-s&-'tur-&
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian, literally, texture, from Latin textura
Date: circa 1891
: the general range of a melody or voice part; specifically : the part of the register in which most of the tones of a melody or voice part lie

http://www.westlinn.lib.or.us/newslt.htm
To a singer the word tessitura describes the human voice finding its comfort level- its home- in a song.  In How Can We Keep From Singing, author Joan Oliver Goldsmith recounts her journey to tessitura in life.  After losing a business, a marriage, and a home, and with memories of a long abandoned dream of professional singing wounding her anew, Goldsmith reinvents her life through her work as an unpaid chorister in the Minnesota Chorale of St. Paul.  In this inspiring and inventive memoir, Goldsmith proposes that each of us carries an invisible instrument, a great love or talent that can- if cultivated- carry us through the natural changes and disappointments of life.  As she rediscovers her own instrument- her voice- Goldsmith urges each in her audience of readers todiscover their own hidden instrument and to play it loud and long.