Monday, December 8, 2008

Lily's First Violin Concert

I really, really should have pictures of this, but as you may have noticed, keeping a camera on hand is not one of my talents. Maybe someone else will post pictures and I can borrow some.
Anyway, Lily had her very first violin concert on Saturday. Her group of 56 beginning violinists performed at the beginning of the concert, which also included the orchestra I play viola in and a fantastic singing group. The whole concert went well, and I was especially proud of Lily, who marched out with her group and played in front of an audience of over 500 without any signs of nervousness. Lily tends to do very well in any situation where she is confident that she knows what to do and how to do it, but to panic if she is not sure she can meet expectations. In preparation for the concert we had been practicing her three performance pieces (Twinkle, Alegro, and Jingle Bells) in concert order for the last few weeks. On concert night we arrived early and I walked her through the whole process from lining up in the hallway, walking on, order of pieces, final bows, and exiting, several times. When performance time came she and all the other kids did a great job. And, if I do say so myself, our orchestra put on a pretty good performance as well! We have a broad range both in terms of age and ability. I think our youngest players are 8 or 9 years old, and the oldest is probably near 70. It's a really fun group to play with.

3 comments:

Kelley said...

That sounds great. Does Lily do Suzuki? I'm glad the concert went so well.

Breezy Point Mom said...

Darn. I wish you had pictures. Those do sound like Suzuki pieces. You must have felt very proud to see her participate in this. I didn't know you played viola! How neat is that? You can probably help Lily practice a great deal, then. My children are playing Christmas music for our church this coming Sunday. Baby Girl will play "O come little children", Little Son will play "O Holy Night", and they will do a duet on "Jingle Bells". We are practicing hard. Have a blessed week!

Paula said...

Lily's violin group is using Suzuki book 1 but not really following Suzuki methods. I would love to have a good Suzuki violin program but haven't found one near here.