Hello again!

No doubt you have all heard about the utter mayhem on Arran, with power outages across the entire island for 4 or 5 days. Unfortunately, this all started on the last day of the music festival, so I didn't get to do anything at all! It has been rescheduled for the 19th April, but I have far too many lessons to do that day, and after having 2 weeks of Easter holiday and an extra week off due to the power cuts, my purse is not happy and I cannot afford to take it off. So no music festival for me :(

The ABRSM exams have no been and gone and my kids did really well! I'm so proud of them and glad to hear that their families are just as pleased. My prep-test entrant got a lovely report, and the 2 grade 1 pupils both passed (1 with merit and the other with distinction - and full marks for aural and 1 of her pieces, wowee!) 

I think on the piano front things will quieten down a little bit now, until the mad dash panic for the next round of exams, for which I plan to have at least 1 pupil sitting grade 1. It all depends on the amount of practice that's done and whether or not I think she'll be ready by July. I'm hoping so, because November is so far away. 

This Friday is our choir (Rowan Singers) concert. We have a great mixed program, broken up nicely by vocal and instrumental solos. I am singing 2 Mendelssohn duets with another lady from the choir, so this will be the first time I've performed vocally for a couple of years (other than karaoke, which doesn't count if you ask me). I'm not feeling nervous about it actually, even though we only had our first rehearsal yesterday haha. 

I think that's all for now. Until next time!

Arran Music Festival

The music festival hasn't happened yet, but it is in less than 3 weeks so things are starting to hot up with rehearsals all over the place and anxiety around remembering words and piano parts.

I've been roped in to quite a lot of things actually, most of which are all happening on the same night so I'm going to be running about like a headless chicken.

To start, I'm doing my own piano performance. I chose my pieces from my hospital bed so I'm not overly happy with what I came up with but it was a last minute thing because I forgot all about the closing date. Oops. Anyway, I'm performing Chopin's "Nocturne in E minor (Op. post)" and Chris Norton's "Rising Force" from the Rock Preludes collection.

To follow, I am accompanying 2 ladies who are singing "Laudamus Te" by Vivaldi and an arrangement of the "Skye Boat Song".

I am also singing with 2 choirs. The big choir (Rowan Singers) is singing "Non Nobis Domine" by Roger Quilter and a medley of "I Only Have Eyes for You" and "The More I See You" arranged by Jay Althouse.
Vivace, which is a ladies group made up of about 10 singers, are performing "My Lady Greensleeves" arranged by Henry Geehl and "My Lagan Love" arranged by Michael Neaum.

I also have one of my own piano pupils and a singing pupil entering the competitive class for their age group. They are both in primary 7, so around age 11. The piano pupil is performing 2 contrasting pieces of her own choice in the under 1 year tuition class, and the singer is performing a set song.

Busy times!