Piano Solo Festival & Recital 2021

The kids played really fun, mostly recognizable, pieces for their festival and recital this year and they did a wonderful job!  They enjoyed learning their pieces and we loved hearing them!

Eliza's festival performance was in this organ room at our local piano
store.  Parents were asked not to go in because of Covid.
I heard Eliza through the glass, though, and she did a great job.
The judge thought so too, and Eliza was chosen as one of the winners!

I was able to watch Jack's performance, which was in a recital hall.
Jack had performed his pieces very well during practice performances but wasn't at his best
for the festival.  I'm so proud of him for all the work he did to get them ready though!

I didn't get to watch Cat's performance either but she rocked it and was also
chosen as a winner.  There was a winner's recital for the oldest age group and she
chose to perform the short, upbeat, and flashy Tarantella.

Eliza learned "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Peter Tchaikovsky and "Toccatina" by Dmitri Kabalevsky.  These were definitely easier pieces for her; she had Sugar Plum Fairy ready in time for our Christmas recital, and Toccatina wasn't far behind, so she was able to do practice performances with confidence in the weeks leading up to the festival.

Jack learned "Minuet" by Anna Magdalena Bach and "Fur Elise" by Ludwig van Beethoven.  Jack really loves learning familiar classical pieces.  Fur Elise was a bit of a stretch for him but he buckled down and learned it really well!

Cat learned "Claire de Lune" by Claude Debussy and "Tarantella in a minor" by Albert Pieczonka.  She's been interested in learning Claire de Lune for a while, and even though her pieces each had unique challenges and she wasn't sure if they would come together in time, they both did, and they both sounded wonderful.

We celebrated the kids' musical accomplishments by getting treats at a new ice cream place in Orem called Sweet Rolled Tacos, where the cooks (freezers?) make ice cream on a cold surface in front of you, then spread it out thin, roll it up into a spiral, slide it into a brightly colored taco-shaped waffle cone, and make it extra pretty and special with fun, festive toppings (and, in our case, a V-Day decoration since it was 2/13).