Piano Duets 2019

The kids learned duets again this fall!  I love that this is part of their piano experience.  Jack and Eliza were partners again, much to their disappointment and to my delight.  I wanted them to choose one Christmas piece so they could perform it at our family Christmas concert, and when they each had the option to choose one piece, Jack chose a cool arrangement of "Carol of the Bells" and Eliza chose "Trepak" from The Nutcracker.  So we've been listening to Christmas music since June!  They performed these at our piano teacher's recital at the beginning of November (a Halloween recital), then again for a duet festival.  I chose the best performance of each piece to share.

Cat's duet partner from the last couple of years decided to switch piano teachers, so she had a new partner.  We've known Isaac and his family through piano for years, and Cat and Isaac were in a quartet together two years ago, but this is the first time they were partners.  Isaac is a little older and is very talented and I think working with him helped Cat stay motivated with these very difficult pieces: excerpts of 3 marches by Bethoven, and a few of the Paganini Variations by Lutoslawski.  They did a very good job at their recital, and continued to practice separately and together, and then were chosen as winners at the festival a week later.  Cat couldn't perform at the winners' recital because we left that day to go on our trip to Disneyland, but Isaac was still able to perform at the recital with our teacher, Sarah.

Practicing before the recital

Performing "Trepak" at the Fall Recital

All done!

The recital was about an hour and 45 minutes long, and literally a full house.
We had a couple of small things to help occupy Luke but they weren't enough,
and Ben and I don't have games on our phones, so they resorted to taking selfies.

Beethoven

Lutoslawski

Practicing before the festival

Ready to perform for the judge at the festival
(It was obviously a piano teacher who hosted this age group - how would you like
to have two grand pianos in your front room?)

Practicing before their festival performance

Festival performance

Done and done!