A Senior Piano Recital and a little catching up.....

I am so sorry to be so long in posting! Just a little something to post Mitchell's Senior Piano Recital video.  Also... I have been remiss in posting about making my final weight loss goal but I did meet my goal of 80 lbs. and have actually exceeded it by a few pounds as I reset the goal to 85... more to come on that later!

We are SO thankful for the opportunity to have a fun Senior Recital for Mitchell.  He has worked so hard over the years on piano and the evening was a highlight for him.  We thank the Lord for the talent He has given Mitchell and the blessing it has been to our family. May he always excel still more!

Trans- Siberian Orchestra: Christmas Eve Sarajevo

Christmas Day entertainment from Mitchell! :-) To his credit he isn't thrilled that I would post this as he insists it is not performance ready but Momma trumped on this one. :-) Aunt Susie and Grandma Hixon... this is for you!





 

Spring Recital

Mitchell's end of the year recital was held on Wednesday night and how enjoyable it was!  What we love is that there are so many young men in our church who love to play the piano and they all encourage and challenge one another to excell still more!   

 

Future Piano Guys??? :-)

 

 

 

 

 

The first song Mitchell played was a duet with his friend Tommy. Tommy is an incredible violin player. He and his sister do a Vivaldi piano/violin duet that is outstanding ...I love to hear him play! He kindly agreed to accompany Mitchell on this first one, River Flows in You by Yiruma. River Flows in You is hands down one of my favorite songs Mitchell plays, it is beautiful! It is the song he played solo (no violin) for the Sunday @ 3 concert series at the Jansen Arts Center last Sunday. 

 





 

The second song is a different story! He changed his song from another piece to this one on Sunday... yes.... 3 days before the recital! He was originally slated to play his Rachmaninoff piece he has worked on for months...literally months! He has worked so hard on that song with much success but even after hundreds of hours working on it there was still this one part in the middle section of the song he has never been able to master. He realized that as much as he wanted to play that song it would not be without a difficult middle section so he decided to change. His teacher, Mrs. VandenBos is such a gem and wants the students to have fun and was all for him changing his song, even last minute! In fact she said if he changed his mind yet again and wanted to improv when he got up there then go for it! Straight away he began memorizing the second song, Racing Against the Sunset by Phillip Wesley. He altered the song a bit and only played 7 of the 10 pages but did pretty well in quick memorization. It is his pet peeve to bring music up to the piano during a recital as he holds himself to pretty high standards on memorization. This time around though since he had so little time for prep. he was open to the suggestion of bringing up one little part of his sheet music up there. He had just a little bit of the music prior to the key change that he had yet to fully memorize so he decided to take a small folded portion of music up with him. Well, poor guy, it would have been good had he not put the sheet music upside down AND backwards!! He still says he should have stopped, held out his finger as if to say "just a minute".... turned over and right side up his paper and started again with a smile! Needless to say you can catch the errors a bit in the playing but otherwise the second song was great and a memorable evening all together! Hope you enjoy!

 

 

Young Composers Recital

This year Isabelle submitted a song to the Young Composers Contest through her piano teacher.  She worked long and hard on "A Wandering Heart" and placed 3rd in the piano level she is at!  Last month a recital was held by the LMTA for the composers and she got to play.  She was extremely nervous but still excited to play her song. ...we are so proud of her! I am sorry for the sideways video, I didn't think about how the video would play when I turned my camera sideways to take it!



 

A Visit and a Concert

This last weekend we got to have Grandma Honey up for a visit! She was here for two-fold reasons.  First, she got to see Mitchell perform a piano piece at a local concert series and the second is that we got to have her here to celebrate her birthday! We always love having her here and this time we also enjoyed seeing photos from her recent trip to Ireland.  It was a grand weekend for sure!

 

A Recital....Kinda

Last Thursday was Mitchell’s Spring piano recital. The piece he played was Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Bedelt, arr. by Jarrod Radnich.   He LOVES piano and has worked diligently all year long.  He originally took lessons for 5 years, starting when he was 8 years old.  Hannah Geneser was his first teacher, and he, her first student.  She instilled in him a love for the piano and now that love is growing!  After his 5^th year he took a couple year break.  He stopped for a couple reasons… the first being that he simply needed a rest!  The second was that during Gigi’s difficult times as her Alzheimer’s disease progressed it was very hard for her to have the piano playing long hours for practice; it was simply too much stimulation and noise for her.  I remember being so sad because over the early years of Mitchell’s lessons she absolutely loved listening to him play.  I can only imagine the beautiful music she is experiencing now with her Savior!

 This last year he picked back up again and began lessons under Sherry VandenBos.  What a treat this year has been!  She is an outstanding teacher and has encouraged him to challenge himself and push ahead of his presumed abilities.  She has brought out the best in him and we are so thankful for her instruction!  He does not intend to stop lessons when he goes to Running Start next year, he will keep going and push himself to more intense playing … we can’t wait to see the results! 

Sadly, the video of the actual recital was on Chad’s iPhone and for some reason we cannot get it to upload or email!  I wanted record of the song so we decided to re-record it on Mrs. VandenBos’ piano at his last practice this week.  While it is not the same atmosphere as the recital, it is still fun nonetheless. Even though this performance is not flawless, it is pretty darn fantastic! Needless to say …..  Mitchell has one PROUD Mama!

PS....Yes, Mitchell did do the final note at the recital...it is his favorite part of course!

A note on the video..... if you keep it small the HD is better.  Unfortunately if you take it to full screen you will get a grainy video, and I am not sure why!