Studio Recital

I have a thankful heart; today was a special, wonderful day!  My students all had a chance to perform in our studio recital, and they all did wonderfully!  As I've said several times today, I never thought I would be teaching kids and loving it so much, but I do!  I love every one of them, and am so incredibly proud of how well they performed and how the whole event went.

In the past, I have only had a few students, and my friend Lisa was kind enough to let them share the stage and perform on her studio recital.  Right now I have 10 of my own students, so we decided to have separate recitals on the same day and share the space and setup duties.  It worked out very well.


My parents were able to come for the weekend, and besides being able to see their granddaughters' first piano performances, they were a huge help.  My dad brought his nice camera and took several wonderful photos that I'm so grateful to have!


Mom made sure all the food for the reception was arranged and ready for serving, while I ran around nervously making sure the musical and organizational details were taken care of as it was time for the recital to start...


Koty and Addie came early to rehearse their duet and make sure we had a good microphone/sound system setup for them.  Using the area mic worked really well and gave them a little bit of room to move and freedom.

I was a bit nervous about everything running smoothly, but really enjoyed the performances and the way the whole event came together.

Since I always loved hearing my teachers perform, I thought I would be an example to my students and show them that I was practicing something for the recital too.  I sang and played The Lord Is My Shepherd, which is a lovely setting of the 23rd Psalm by Jewish composer, Abraham Kaplan.  I was a bit flustered from the flurry of activity in getting the recital rolling, and though I went first to take the pressure of performing first off my students, it was hard to get calm and perform as well as I wanted.  

Sylvia went first after me, and played Bells of Great Britain.
She really enjoys playing, and does such a good job.  

Later in the program, we played a duet called Time to Celebrate, which was great fun.  I love making music with my girl!

Addie played Pumpkin Boogie for her piano solo.  She performed so well; I could tell she was really concentrating on performing her best.  Her tempo was controlled, dynamics and articulations accurate, and it was clean and polished.  She did great!

Eliza was so sweet, as always.  She played a medley of Oom-Pa-pa and When the Saints Go Marching In that we put together.  She had even transposed the second one into the Key of G and memorized it that way so she wouldn't have to change keys.
And, we had such fun playing with tempo changes in our duet of Do-Re-Mi!  She is always well prepared and works hard to play flawlessly.

Annah and I played My Pony together.  We had decided to play it 3 times through, in different ways, to make it more interesting.  The first time she played it alone.  The second time I joined her and we played it softly until adding a crescendo into the last phrase.  The third time through, we played forte until we put in a diminuendo to the end.  We were entertained, even if no one else got it. ;)  

Kasey has only had 5 lessons with me!  We had worked on two songs, and each had a preference between the two.  She was so sweet to accept the challenge of performing the one I thought was better for her.  She sang the song Maybe, from Annie, and did a very sweet performance.  I look forward to lots more lessons and performances with her!

Little Gabi is my youngest student.  She has only taken lessons since February, and isn't even half way through her primer book yet.  So, I was proud of her for being willing to perform already too!  She has loved the song, Bamboo Leaves in her lesson book since before we even got to it in lessons, and played very bravely today.  How adorable!

Koty sang beautifully on her solo of American Lullaby.  She is so gracious to try any of the crazy-seeming techniques I ask her to do--even with an expander and braces in her mouth.  I just appreciate her dedication to music even when it's challenging.  She loves to sing, and does it so well.  

Annah played her solo, Gold Doubloons, very well.  She is such a natural at the piano, but we have argued quite a bit these last few months over her urge to race through every song she practices!  Today, though, she was very intentional to use the slower tempo I taught her.  She played very musically, and I was really proud of her.  

Paige did well on both her solo and her duet.  Her duet song, Beach Party, was not her favorite, but she worked hard on polishing and memorizing it even so, and was so sweet to want me to play with her.  She was determined to play Rainbow Connection for her solo, and worked hard for months on it, even though it was much more difficult than the things we were working on in her regular lesson books.  I was so proud of her for setting this goal and accomplishing the reward of getting to perform the song she wanted to!

Kriegh is the boy whose brain I cannot keep up with. ;)  He processes pages of music in a glance before I even have a chance to take a breath and scan the page header to see what I am supposed to teach him!  He has been with me off and on over the years, and I am so glad he has renewed his desire to play piano. Much of the time it comes easy for him, but he is committed to practicing and conquering the difficult things too.
He has been playing Malagueña for a few months now, and did a great job with it today.  
Tuesday, when he came for his lesson, he surprised me by having a second song ready for the recital!  I had given him Bourée and Musette a few weeks ago, and then he unexpectedly had to miss a couple lessons and I didn't get to hear him play it.  He plopped down at the piano on Tuesday and said he was ready to do both songs on the recital, and so he did!

Addie has literally no fear of performing.  Nerves of steel, this girl!  She just loves every chance to be on stage, and it shows.  She sang Christopher Robin Is Saying His Prayers, and despite the fact that I told her to use the handheld mic at the last minute (after preparing for weeks thinking she'd have one on a stand), she added such expression and sweetness.  Precious.

Janae is my most advanced student.  She came to me last November, having already worked through the first four levels of Faber & Faber books with her sister when she was littler.  She had a few habits to break and a few to learn, and she immediately rises to any challenge I present her.  I keep telling her I'm going to have to send her on to a better teacher soon, because she will surpass me.  But, at the same time, I want to keep her forever, because she is wonderful!
Today, she played Romance by Martha Mier (love her pieces!), and The Village Prophet by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  She memorizes e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she plays, and just plays beautifully.  We had worked hard on adding expression in these two pieces, and--even though she later told me her foot was shaking uncontrollably--she played them both perfectly!

Koty and Addie gave us a really fun "grand finale" to the recital with their performance of Anything You Can Do.  (I remember singing it with my friend Amy when we shared a voice teacher back in junior high!  Such a fun and silly song to sing with a friend!  Everyone enjoyed their performance!

I am SO incredibly proud of these kids!!!  And, I was so choked up, I could barely explain that I love every single one of them to bits!!!  It is such a pleasure and honor to get to share music with them, to work at trying to teach and inspire them, and to be part of their lives.
I love them, love them, love them!!!

I must say, the reception turned out to be pretty nice too!  Mom baked a Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake (without the cinnamon) and a Blonde Texas Sheet Cake with Caramel Pecan Frosting (using real buttermilk!), and made my other choices look like a really nice spread!  We had fresh pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, strawberries, and green grapes; various crackers and cheeses; and lime sherbet punch--minus the maraschinos.  

I love my mom.  She has such a servant's heart.  When I told her I wanted to do the baking for the reception (instead of asking my students' parents to do it), she insisted on baking sheet cakes.  This, and her willingness to set up and serve the food was such a tremendous help to me today, I can't even explain it how much I appreciate it!  She does it with much less stress and more grace than I, for sure!  She definitely has a great gift of hospitality!
And, she and Jeremy and Dad cleaned up the reception area and packed up the leftover food while I was still visiting with people who attended the recital.  They are all too good to me!

Oh, it was a wonderful day!  The students all had fun performing.  The parents and grandparents and friends were all proud and excited to see and hear their children perform.  I was affirmed in my current place in life as a music teacher, and feel so incredibly blessed to get to do what I am doing!


"Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord!" 
- Ephesians 5:19