Christmas Recital

Cat continues to impress me with her progress on the piano.  It seems the standard gets noticeably higher with each recital, yet she continues to rise to the occasion.

Cat's teacher helps put on a duet festival every fall, which Cat competed in in 2012 and 2013 but couldn't participate this year because it was the same weekend we were in California.  She learned the pieces anyway, and practiced them with her partner, Ella.  Ella participated in the festival with their teacher, Sarah, instead.  I'm glad the girls had a chance to perform their pieces together at the recital.

Cat and Ella enjoying waffles after the recital.

Cat had a big piece she was working on but a couple of weeks before the recital Sarah asked Cat if she wanted to prepare a Christmas piece as well.  Cat said she would like to, and chose "March" from The Nutcracker.  Because she had such a short amount of time to learn it, she only performed the first half.

Last year, Sarah mentioned that Cat might want to consider learning a concerto.  Cat thought about it for a while, wondering if she wanted to put in the time and effort to learn that much music.  Over the summer, Cat decided she was ready.  Sarah gave her a few to choose from, and Cat liked Concerto Romantique by Catherine Rollin the best.  She started working on the first movement at the end of July and learned it in just a few months.  It's 22 pages of music (with both parts) and takes over 5 minutes to play.  Sarah accompanied Cat, though it's hard to hear the other part for most of the recording.  It really sounded lovely at the recital.

Cat has a natural ability when it comes to piano, but she also works hard.  She's had a pretty good attitude about practice lately, which is so lovely, and it's fun to see her dive into a new piece.  The initial challenge of learning something new is Cat's favorite part of the process.  She considers perfecting to be too drudgerous.

Cat and Sarah