End of the Year Recital

We had our end of the year recital again.  We miss having Will perform there too, but we attended his band concert. I have a video of it, but Will is back there in the center with the trumpets and you can't see him -- when your kids are choosing instruments, think about where they'll be performing and how well you'll be able to see them! Think violins and basses and marching band instruments, for example.

This is always a time when Sebi and I sit down and madly start polishing his piano piece, using the metronome and working on dynamics and phrasing. He's usually able to pull something out of a hat. This time, though, he was playing a piece that he absolutely loved, but was really too advanced for him: the theme from The Hobbit. The left and right hands were each tougher than he's used to, and there were some key changes with a lot of accidentals. This meant that there were a lot more tears involved than usual, and it was a bit of a white knuckler. After a false start, though, he really pulled out a much better performance than I thought he could -- he's only done better once during practice.

And Madeline played something I've never heard, before or since. She doesn't like us to sit with her while she practices, so she scuttles off into another room and plays with the door shut. It's fun to hear her at least twice a year!