Music Recital

End of the Year Student Recital - 31 May 2012

I am so proud of Samuel, Emma and Jonathan for their outstanding performances last night at the music recital!   They all have showed great perseverance and faithfulness over the past 7 months in their musical studies.  The kids have surely inherited their father's passion and gift in music.  Samuel and Emma love playing the piano and we are so thankful for this experience for them.  Luca is right behind them, teaching himself and figuring out how to play on his own.  It is very likely he will be enrolled in piano come the fall.

Jonathan is a self-taught guitarist and up until last November has never taken a lesson in his life.  He finds classical guitar playing a challenge in technique and a growing passion of his.  His instructor made sure to communicate to the MC last night that Jonathan was performing songs that are studied by a 5th year student in a conservatory.  I think he is her price pupil.  The MC praised him again at the end of his performance saying how Jonathan practices 4-6 hours a day!  Umm, that was news to us both!  Clearly he does have a family, work and life you know!

The program began at 9:00 PM.  I know all you Americans out there are gasping at the thought, considering too it was on a school night.  The recital was held at the local theater here in Leinì.  There were 80 students listed in the program and many performed 2 songs a piece.  Samuel and Emma were #34 and #35 and Jonathan #52.  Around 10:00 Samuel and Emma became less concerned about playing and more worried that they would not be awake to play.  Thankfully their adrenalin kicked in for them to execute stellar performances at 10:30 PM.  Jonathan waited another hour to play his pieces before we made a beeline for the door and headed home.  A mom from school verified that her son played the final piece of the night at 1:00 AM!!!

Samuel and Emma with their teacher, Ruben

The auditorium was packed out as this was quite the community event

Here is a video of their performances.  The lighting was so bad that we could not get any pictures worth posting.  I had issues with the video camera: covering the speaker when recording Jonathan and somehow switching to black and white for the kids.  Sorry!  Jonathan took video from his iPhone from a different location and thankfully he did as Ruben was totally blocking my view of Samuel from where I was.  The teachers sat near their students while they played which I thought was kind of cool as it served to help calm nerves.  Enjoy!



 P.S. Dad and Mom, a huge display poster did fall from the wall during a piano performance.  Unlike me, the student kept his composure and concluded without being phased. I did chuckle to myself at the memory of my own disastrous recital.  :)