Another successful year in our piano studio!
By Clare
Another successful year in the studio! Everyone has been working very hard this year, and everyone has made quite some achievement though being online for the most of it!
A few exciting things include Jeremy winning the Crescendo Piano Competition seniors category and was invited to play at the Carnegie Hall at the gala concert back in early March. He is one of the cases who started with me in person for about a month, and it has been all online until now because he moved to Victoria during the pandemic. Jeremy is very passionate and dedicated to music; he has made tremendous progress since we started! It’s hard to believe that it was only two years ago when he joined my studio starting with a sonatina. Now he is preparing for another solo recital in the near future, and aiming to learn Prokofiev 3rd piano concerto! Very impressive hard work!
Another highlight this year is Shanti winning Gr. 7 Canadian category at the Kiwanis Music Festival this year along with a third place for Gr. 7 Classical category. It was her very first competition ever, and it was also in-person for the first time since Covid. She definitely worked really hard! Her mom told me that she would try to think of ways to make sure she can correct or change how she plays basing on my suggestions. It was definitely impressive for me to notice her weekly tremendous improvement! Congratulations to her, and we will keep working hard!
We are quite cautious about covid since the pandemic hit. We switched to online teaching quite early on and continued to do online-only until only very recently. And we finally did an in-person studio recital for the first time in over two years!
One more highlight of the year is that we finally had our first in-person studio recital since Covid! It has been a little tough for everyone during this time. Technology-wise was actually okay for us since we already have all these sound and video equipment, so most of the students feel there isn’t too much of a difference comparing to in-person lessons with us. They were able to see our hands, upper bodies with no problem. However, the one thing technology can’t replace is the experience of performing live for people; it is just different! We are very happy for everyone that not only they continued to improve, but they improved so much! It really showed in the recital! They were all excited and said how it really felt different to perform in-person again after all this time! It was also nice to see them catching up with each other, it is so important to have friends who can share musical interests!
Congratulations to all again! Of course also thanks to Scott for his occasional listening to them and suggesting things here and there, it always helps to keep them open-minded! There are a few more exciting things coming up next including several of them learning concertos, some for the first time, as well as a couple of solo recitals by them coming up in the next school year. Let’s all look forward to it! Have a great summer everyone!
