Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

"Music Exists for the purpose of growing an admirable heart" ~Shinichi Suzuki

Reflection from the Performer: Charlotte ~ Book 7 violin recital

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For me, this recital is a unique experience that I’m proud of. I’m proud of the first quarter of the recital, as I think that I performed steadily with emotion, keeping my musical intentions in my mind. I’m also proud of the fact that I continued to play even when I performed not up to my expectations (E.g. The Rumanian Dances).


I tried hard to bring myself into the work, to bring out the musicality in each piece. Whenever I felt a hint of nervousness, I told myself: ‘It’s OK, you got this’ – this allowed me to go back on track after small mishaps. It gave me a renewed sense of control, ‘guiding’ the piece back to its ‘train track’ of musical ideas.


Also, I believe that I should balance practice more evenly between the harder and easier pieces.For some pieces, I felt that I didn’t practice it enough, so I couldn’t bring out its ideas. Ironically, it was the ‘easier’ ones, for example, the Bach Gigue.


Sometimes, in pieces with lots of 16th notes (such as the Bach A Minor 1st movement), it’s hard to grasp the overall direction. A good way that I attempted was to think about the important notes constituting the melody, usually at the start of each 16th note. This helped me to grasp the flow of the piece, to have a sense of creating something.


Overall, I’m quite satisfied with this recital. For me, the most fulfilling aspect of it was not that, for example, I played xxx pieces brilliantly (though that is also something that gratifies me). It was that I continued to play on, through the difficulties, with a strong will, ending the recital with a gorgeous finish.

Gold Medals for All in First Suzuki Olympics Online!

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After carefully preparing with the videos provided by their group class teachers, SMAHK students and parents participated in the first Suzuki Olympics Online! Each group class held its own olympics in their designated Zoom room.

The opening event was the Torch Ceremony. Everyone balanced an object on their head. More advanced students played a level-appropriate piece while trying to keep the object from falling. The youngest students had beautiful posture with their bodies and instruments and balanced the object while listening to the music. One student commented that “I think balancing the stuffed animal was my favourite because we got to balance a stuffed animal on our head.”

Another event was the Balance Beam, which had students balance on one foot while playing or singing a piece. In some of the classes, parents made comments about the students’ efforts. Some of the comments included “Not an easy task, but everyone was trying their best” and “Most of them are standing stable“. One student commented that “My favourite one was the balance beam. I was wearing high heels. That made it hard to balance.”

During the Rings, students worked on the position of their hands and arms. Some students had the chance to watch a recording of an olympic athlete competing in the rings at the olympics. It was fun to hear the reactions of the students and parents to seeing the “real” olympic event for the first time: “How did they do tha…the...this is impossible!”

We also had Rhythmic Gymnastics, where students were challenged to use their bodies to match with the beat in unexpected ways.

Another event that was about pulse and pace was the Marathon! Parents commented that the students were “Impressive keeping in time and matching the changing tempo.” while one student said “I think changing speed when stamping feet and playing is the hardest.”

The Parallel Bars allowed students to engage in working on having their body relaxed and stable and ready to support the instrument and its appropriate playing position. In one of the groups, the students needed to shake hands with their parents every time they played an open string. One student commented “I liked the exercise where we had to shake hands. It was very fun!”

The final event was Archery: students tried to use the focus of their eyes, mind and ear to figure out what piece the teacher was “air playing” using just their bow or hands, without making sound. It was interesting that the student comments on this event were the most diverse, ranging from “The archery was easy” to “I think the archery was kind of hard to do, but I think it was fun to do. I hope we can do it again next time.”

Students’ comments about the olympic event included “I think the olympic group class was the most exciting group class ever!” “Fun, and made the most of the available resources. I would do it again next year!” One student even commented “I think today’s olympics is fun because it’s not the real one, but it’s the violin version.”

All in all, the first Suzuki Olympics Online were a great success, and all of the students, parents and teachers definitely deserve gold medals for their efforts!

Bach in the Subway, 2020

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It’s disappointing that current circumstances make it so that our traditional live performance of Bach in the Subway could not happen

During Bach’s lifetime, there wasn’t anything worldwide that compares with what is happening currently with COVID-19. However, he did get sent to prison once – because he quit his job! Wonder how that impacted his musical compositions?

Since this is such an unsual time, an unusual Bach in the Subway celebration is just right! Instead of the live performance, students received a practice video with each group class assigned to focus on one of Bach’s pieces. Everyone in the school had the opportunity to participate! After mastering the practice assignments, students made a recording of themselves performing their group’s piece along with Ms. Sonomi’s accompaniment video. To create the “performance”, teachers worked with the individual videos to combine them into a montage….instant Bach in the Subway performance!

It’s wonderful that so many students participated in celebrating Bach’s birthday. Many thanks to all of the students who joined, to their parents for taking the time to do the special practicing and making the technology work, to the teachers for making the practice videos, to Ms. Sonomi for also making the accompaniment videos, to Ms. Lan, Ms. Monica, Ms. Yuko and Ms. Diane for making the video montages.

Please enjoy SMAHK’s 2020 celebration of JS Bach:

Minuet No. 1 Bach, Casals, Haydn, Telemann, Suzuki, Twinkle: https://youtu.be/B4wfs9_M2Is

Minuet No. 2 Beethoven, Clementi, Telemann: https://youtu.be/bekeB4eREoo

Minuet Corelli: https://youtu.be/ghjyxjSCFMk

Musette Hindemith, Mozart, Suzuki: https://youtu.be/m9d4eTo8oVA

Gavotte in C Minor Du Pre: https://youtu.be/k_5tZf10aCY

Gavotte in D major Fiocco: https://youtu.be/bPET7uMkm5Q

Gavotte for Solo Violin Prokofiev & Paganini: https://youtu.be/z0xoKEcFb3c

Happy Birthday, Bach!

MusiCares and ImpactHK

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After months of preparation and emails between MusiCares students and ImpactHK Founder and CEO Jeff Rotmeyer, the time for the Kindness Walk finally arrived!

MusiCares students took the bins of shirts and sneakers which had been donated by SMAHK families to give to the staff at the Guest Room. The donations were very warmly received.

The entire experience was led by Mr. Jeff. He began by talking with the group about how the whole starting point of what ImpactHK does is to spread kindness, develop friendships and build trust. He gave several examples of people who either still are, or had been, homeless – what their current situation is, as well as what events led to them becoming homeless.

Some things we learned:

  • #kindnessmatters
  • They have existed for 2 years
  • They have gotten 200 people off the streets in 2 years
  • They have homed 5 people since the beginning of 2020
  • They offer three meals every day at the Guest Room
    • They had almost 50 people at lunch on Saturday
  • They do a Kindness Walk around 4 times every day
  • In addition to meals, the Guest Room offers people
    • A place to gather
    • A way to do laundry
    • A place to take a shower
  • ImpactHK also offers
    • Counselling services
    • Yoga classes
    • Other helpful things

MusiCares students had this to say about the experience:

“Today was a very touching, very wonderful, eye opening experience for me. Before, I thought that if we show care for street cleaners and the homeless, they would feel insulted as it would hurt their pride. Now I know that #kindness matters, and that kindness can’t go wrong. That acting kindly, and intrinsicly, and empathetically is all that matters. Now, whenever I walk on the street, I will treat street cleaners/the poor much more differently with confidence! To spread the seeds of love!”

“I learned a lot more about the homeless people in Hong Kong and what I thought was a norm which is now a definitely mean thing to think.”

“I learned that we should love and care for the homeless people everywhere. And I will help other people in the future.”

“This kindness walk has furthered my understanding of how to view the homeless and to treat them with care.”

“This kindness walk was a very new experience to me and I enjoyed it very much. Before this, I had no idea that so many people in Hong Kong needed our help. Giving the homeless people food really made their day and it also made me feel better and happier.”

“Doing the Kindness walk today, and from past kindness walks, helped me better understand what ImpactHK is. As well as this, I was able to see what the conditions were when we got to each person, because the past walks I’ve been on I didn’t see the people at their ‘homes’. Today was also niece to see the other people’s opinion of ImpactHK since none of them had experienced it before.”

“I think it was a very eye opening experience for me and I had lots of fun. I hope I can get to have another chance to help the homeless and offer them a better opportunity.”

“Today, I started to understand more about the homeless and found out that they need more help than I thought. I gave out eggs to the homeless and when I saw the smile on their faces that made me feel very good. I learned that I need to pay more attention to the homeless and be nicer to them. The homeless really need help and I hope they get the help they need.”

“This was an eye-opening experience for me. During this adventure, I learned the importance of kindness, the value of giving love and caring for people. Just a simple act of giving a banana can bring a smile to someone’s face, helping them and spreading joy. Us humans should all be a little more caring, more altruistic and spend some time making somebody’s day just a bit better.”

100% of the required $4000 donation to participate in a kindness walk is used to help the homeless. On average, it costs over $30,000 in real money, in addition to the hours of time and volunteer services, for one person to move through the process from homeless to employed and with a home. We hope that you will continue to donate so that we can wind up giving ImpactHK much more than the required donation!

(Ms Diane is very proud that several of the MusiCares students have already made contributions from their own pocket money!).

Stanley Christmas Market Performance!

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String students finished off 2019 with a fun – and windy! – performance of Christmas, Chanukah, and Suzuki repertoire at the Stanley Christmas Market. They reorganised everything this year, spreading the booths and activities out throughout Stanley Plaza and Murray House; the performance “stage” was both smaller and in a different location much closer to Murray House. This made it much easier for the students to manoeuvre from the set-up location to the stage…especially helpful in the windy conditions! It also brought our audience closer to us. It was a great way for us to kick off the holiday season! Our best wishes to all for a joyous and relaxing holiday.

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