My much-anticipated recital day had arrived! When I stepped in the store, I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the gorgeous pianos. I kinda geeked out just a little haha. So. Many. Pianos. And gorgeous ones, too! The recital hall boasted a 9-foot Balwin concert grand, which probably costs more than a car! It was nice that they decorated it nicely for Christmas. My students were very fortunate to be able to play on a nice piano like that. Lots of work went into this recital, and as you can see it paid off! My students were excited to play their pieces. I didn't do a program this time, instead I let the kids pick which songs they wanted to hear next (I didn't include the names of any of the players). The kids were all dressed nice in their Christmas best, and I think we all had a good time. I'm always a little nervous so I try not to talk much if I can because I'm sure I look like and absolute dork when I do. I think the kids played pretty well, for the most part. Not perfect, but when has a piano recital never had mistakes? Here are the pictures and videos of the recital:
Angels We Have Heard On High--Duet
Ian and Brielle were ok with being the first performers. Despite how many times they practiced this, it still wasn't together for the performance (they did have it fairly well for some practices). Looking back, I should have had them play it through again.
Ian and Brielle choose Jingle Bells. Which was originally supposed to be Carson and Gabe, but Carson didn't have it even remotely ready so I had to play Carson's part, and I had Carson choose another piece to play. Erik flipped the page too early, if you can't tell!
Ack. A bad position for me to sit if I wanted decent pics of my students playing. I try to get a picture of each one, I did miss a few since I was either page-turning or accompanying:
Grant
Makayla--looking back I should have had her play later since her mom arrived halfway through the recital and missed both of her performances. I wasn't sure that she was coming at all though.
Erik took this--not sure what part of the recital this was.
Carson
I sat down to record Elisa and held the phone as if I were recording...dummy me forgot to hold the record button. I had her play again at the end so I could actually get a recording of her. I do wish she would have practiced more. She absolutely refused to touch the piano days before the recital. And it shows.
French Carol, a duet by Makayla and Elisa. Super cute, they did a pretty good job.
Camden playing "Believer". He's my most advanced student and this was a tough piece to play!
Just a random shot of the audience.
Lydia playing Drummer Boy. She didn't do so hot on this one, but she did a pretty good job on her other piece, Pachelbel's Canon.
Gabe's up next! He played a very un-Christmasy song, "The Fly". He could have cleaned his playing up a bit more--he didn't practice too much either. But it held together ok and he did an all-around good job. There are two videos, one that Erik took and one that I took. Too bad no one took a video of Elisa then she played.
Cute Ian was next. I'm sure Gabe chose his song on purpose! Ian played Frosty the Snowman. He hardly ever missed a note at home, not sure why he did at the recital. He seemed surprised that he missed a note, haha!
Ian picked his duet with Edmond to go next! It was good that they played the song twice, since the first time they were kinda off, but they got in sync the next time around.
Brielle playing Silent night. She played it pretty well the first time around. The version she played was a bit above her level, so she did an extra good job!
Kaiden, who has progressed quite rapidly since he started with me. I'm glad his finally arrived to see him play.
Elisa's "Deck the Halls", post recital because I didn't press the record button.
The best group picture of the lot that was taken. Haha!
Very nice piano recital! It was a decorative setting, the kids looked dressed up and performed well.
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