Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

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

Reflections from the Performers: Cristal and Ursula Book 1 Cello Recital

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Cristal and Ursula performed their first-ever Book Recital together! Here’s what they had to say about the experience:

~ from Ursula

 I have been learning cello for a relatively short time, so let me share my experience: I hope my pitch is correct, I will play each note with my heart, make each note have life, and finally let the listeners communicate with me through the music. Although it is difficult to make the listeners feel the emotions I want to express in the music, I am trying my best.

~ from Cristal

My first book recital went brilliant! And I’m really happy that I didn’t do huge mistakes. I think that Ms. Sonomi and Ms. Silvia helped me a lot and the beats of our joint pieces with Ursula become much stronger and steadier.

My family supports me a lot and I was so excited to have my little brother and cousins joining my recital. When we played our solo pieces, I felt I performed good for Allegretto, Lightly Row and French Folk Song. However, my bow got stuck when I was playing O Come Little Children because there was no space left with my long bow.

At last, we played the two joint pieces, I didn’t feel nervous any more and I enjoyed our performances very much. I felt so thankful to everyone who helped me during our practice and I hope I can have our second recital with Ursula very soon.

Reflections from the Performers: Elise & Nicole Book 2 Recital

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Nicole and Elise joined together to give their Book 2 recital. Having piano and violin together for this book is a special experience for the performers. Violinists learn to play Happy Farmer “piano style” – a much more difficult key for violin than the way it was learned in Book 1. Pianists learn to play Musette, which is not a piece currently in the piano repertoire. Here are the girls’ reflections on their experience:

~ from Nicole

I was really glad when I heard that my partner was going to be Elise. I felt like Elise and I collaborated exceptionally well for our book recital, demonstrating a strong partnership that enhanced our overall performance.

During joint lessons, we worked hard to practice the flow of every joint piece. For the twinkle variations, we practiced playing the twinkles at 80, having the right articulation, and remembering about the retard at the end of the twinkle theme. Musette, I felt like the first time when we played Musette together, we were challenged since Elise just started learning it and I hadn’t practiced the harmony well enough. However, as we began to focus on coordinating our parts and improving the ending, we were able to play the piece well. As for Happy Farmer, since it was the last piece of the whole recital, we were really relaxed which made us not concentrate and caused us to mess up in the beginning, but that shows how well I and Elise can collaborate. I think part of why the joint pieces were great is that we practiced them over and over during all the joint lessons and dress rehearsal. 

I think I had good energy in Two Grenadiers and I used whole bows. I also really liked how I played Waltz. I had good dynamic changes, and the last note was really good. Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus: I used my thumb and elbow to have whole bows to have a good tone. In Hunter’s Chorus, my ti tis were even, which made the notes sound even and clear.

In Lully Gavotte, my high c was not in tune so it sounded kind of messy. I could have had a better contact point when I started Gossec Gavotte. In Boccherini Minuet, I felt like sometimes my third finger A was out of tune and I could have made my trills sound clearer.

After the recital, we had lots of snacks and drinks at the reception. I want to say thank you to Ms. Diane, for teaching me all the pieces I performed and supporting me. Ms. Sonomi, for collaborating with me and also teaching me during the joint lessons. Ms. Marie Ann, for organizing everything. My family for supporting me. Elise’s parents for supporting me and Elise during the joint lessons, dress rehearsal, and book recital. Elise, for being a wonderful friend and partner!

Although I was still feeling a little sick, the whole book recital was a really fun and enjoyable experience. All the hard work paid off! 

~from Elise

Overall, this has been my favourite recital out of the two recitals that I’ve done. During the recital, I feel like I was able to try and not stress despite my short term memory loss on the last piece but it added humour to the whole experience. I also personally feel like I work really well with Nicole, I just feel like because we have similar personalities it was easier to communicate even without needing to speak and when making our poster we had a lot of fun. Nicole was a great partner and she was one of the very few violin friends that I ever made after I met her in orchestra. Never did I ever think when asking myself who I would be paired up with for the recital, I never even thought of Nicole. I’m so proud of both of us and we make a really good team.

Reflections from the Performers: Hanson & Andrew Book 3 Violin Recital

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Andrew and Hanson were the last of three Book Recitals on our first day of Spring Term Book Recitals. Here are their reflections on the experience:

~from Hanson

When I discovered I had an upcoming recital, I was overjoyed to be able to perform the pieces I had spent so much time practicing, as well as the learning opportunities provided by the numerous joint lessons and rehearsals on teamwork and technique. 

Before the recital, I meticulously practiced all of my solo and collaborative pieces to avoid becoming a burden to my partner. I was also looking forward to playing with my partner, Andrew, because it would allow us to get to know each other better and learn how to work with people other than our close friends and family. 

During the recital, I remembered all of the different queues, ritards, and techniques I was supposed to use, and they all worked really well with Andrew. The audience was occasionally distracting, but I gave the recital my undivided attention, and the many hours of preparation paid off.

Although I made a mistake and forgot an entire section, Ms. Sonomi and Andrew were able to follow along, demonstrating that we made an excellent team and were able to collaborate effectively. 

I felt like this was one of the best recitals I would ever give, thanks in large part to the amount of practice I put in with my mother. It was truly heartwarming at the end of the recital when the audience cheered and congratulated us, particularly those from my family.

~from Andrew

This year, I had my book 3 recital. It was quite similar to the previous two, but instead of playing lots of solos, this recital was mainly focused around duo pieces and making music with your partner. I like this way of recitals a lot because it really shows that working together can create a better tone than playing alone. 

The recital wasn’t always smooth sailing. I had lots of trouble keeping up with Hanson during Bach Bourree. I think this is because I didn’t practice much, or maybe because it was the newest piece of music I had just learned. But on the other hand, I think I did quite well during Martini Gavotte. I think this is because my part had to start 2 beats after the main melody, which caused some confusion at first.

Overall, I think this recital was a fun experience, and I wish to have more duo pieces and solo pieces in the next recital.

Reflections of the Performers: Alice Wan and Stacey Fung, Book 4 & 5 Violin Recital

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Alice and Stacey worked together to prepare and perform their Book 4 & 5 violin recital. It was the first time they got to combine their friendship with independent responsibility for learning and preparation…here are their thoughts about the experience!

~from Stacey

I was so happy when I knew that Alice and I were going to have our book 4-5 recital together. This was a really big milestone for both of us. At the start of the preparations, Alice and I had planned perfectly how we were going to prepare for this recital, but we had a very busy schedule so sometimes we would have to reschedule.

Some joint pieces were enjoyable while some were very challenging. For example, the bach double. I always thought that it was really hard to listen to others while playing and matching my part to theirs. The Bach double requires lots of listening, practice and communication. Alice and I first tackled this piece by practicing separately then using the music to play together, this really helped us match our two parts together. But as we had a lot of other activities, we couldn’t always have consistent rehearsal times, we would often make mistakes in the bach double and it would become very frustrating. In the end, through lots of feedback and practice, we managed to get more comfortable with this joint piece and even add on great dynamics and communication in our piece. Right before we performed the bach double, it was super nerve racking, Alice and I recited the key details of this piece and went on “stage” . Thankfully, our bach double was played beautifully with no mistakes!

Other than the joint pieces, I struggled with one of my solo pieces in particular, which was the vivaldi concerto in A minor, this was the first time I would have to play an entire concerto in one go. At first I thought that it would be the hardest piece I could do. I slowly got used to the length of the pieces and was able to play the piece comfortably. But I was missing something. I was missing a lot of dynamics! I had to go back to each movement and work on the dynamics for each part of the piece. Although the process was tedious, I managed to polish the concerto and could perform with Miss Sonomi. I think my best piece on the day of the recital would have been this piece since it had so many different elements and it really developed me as a violin player. I learnt so much about the timing between each movement and how to settle into the mood of each movement. I also really enjoyed playing Seitz 5. 1. This piece was my favorite piece in book 4, it was such a pleasure to play this with great dynamics and energy at my recital. During this piece, I focused alot on my elbow and the energy of the song, listening back to the videos my parents took, I was really happy to be able to play this piece.

  Lastly, I would like to thank all the people who have helped me prepare for this recital. I would like to thank Ms. Diane, for teaching me and setting the standards higher than ever. Ms. Sonomi, for accompanying with me(she basically saved me 17 times in my life).Ms. Marie Ann, for organizing everything you could ever imagine. My mom and dad, for always supporting me in my practice. And Alice for being such a great friend and partner to complete my book 4-5 recital with. Thankyou!

~ from Alice

I gave the book four and five recital with one of my friends Stacey. Overall it was a really fun experience, but it was a very special book recital and definitely challenged us a lot. One thing that you need about the book 4 and five recital is the preparation process. Unlike the recitals that we have given before, the book 4 and five recital requires a lot of independent preparation. We had to arrange our time ourselves and practice without any adult guidance, which started out to be quite a challenge, because me and Stacey are both very energetic people that get distracted easily. We also had a lot of trouble with hard pieces because we didn’t know how to practice them at first, and without supervision from Ms. Diane, things could go off the rails sometimes. One of the hardest pieces, the Bach Double, which we had trouble finding ways to practice and make progress on during our practice sessions. However, we were able to overcome this challenge eventually and stayed on task during most of our practice sessions. We made a lot of progress during the sessions and we also learned how to work and collaborate with each other. The preparation process really taught as how to explore different practice methods and identify areas of growth within our playing.

Another thing that the book recital taught us was about performance skills. During our dress rehearsal we stopped and started many times, which we had to eventually overcome by putting in more work, forcing ourselves to keep going, and communicating with each other and our accompaniment pianist miss Sonomi, who is also an amazing teacher. We also had to learn about how to play an entire concerto and how to switch moods in between movements to engage our audience. We also developed skills like following each other and communicating while playing. A good example of this is when we had to pay the Bach double and because it’s a duet, and we had problems communicating with each other, when we performed for the first time it was very messy. We improved this by communicating more often and it solved the problem. Something else that we learned we had to learn the hard way. Our seats while we weren’t playing between the pieces were behind the piano, so we thought no one could see or hear us when we were there. We were whispering a lot, and turns out not only could you see it, you could hear it too! We only realised this halfway through the recital when the audience appeared to notice our communication behind the piano. Now we learned to always be cautious and never talk or snap out of performance character onstage.

While there were a few hiccups along the way, the recital taught me a lot about collaboration, performing and playing the violin. It was a great experience with many takeaways and we had a lot of fun! (Plus there was a reception with all sorts of delicious food and drinks.

Reflections of the Performers: Sander Day and Ayden Siu Book 4 & 5 Violin Recital

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Ayden and Sander performed their Book 4 & 5 recital together. Quite an accomplishment, as the level of responsibility for this recital is quite a bit more than students have had previously! Please enjoy their reflections on the experience.

~from Ayden

This book 4 & 5 recital is very different from all my past recitals. It not only encompasses two Suzuki books, but also student-led responsibility. We are responsible for working on all joint pieces preparation and making plan independently without parent involvement. I had to organise multiple practice times together with Sander for our joint pieces before joint lessons. During this process, we encountered challenges, like how our schedules conflicted and how to make plans on individual practice for areas like tempo, dynamics changes etc. This is especially evident in Bach Double where we needed to pass the melody back and forth, and where we had to phrase different parts together which was difficult to work on.

Reflecting on the book recital, as I had dedicated extra time to commiting quality practice to my solo pieces according to Ms Diane’s comments from lessons. I felt the solo pieces, although at the start had a lot to work on, were not very challenging during the recital. One of my favourite moments during the book recital was having the opportunity to perform the entire Vivaldi Concerto. This became my most memorable solo piece. The Vivaldi Concerto starts from Allegro, to Largo back to Allegro. This big change in mood required me to spend enough time to change the atmosphere before starting. I thought I have done it smoothly during the book recital. Furthermore, I also thought that I had used vibrato and created dynamic contrast well throughout to help set the atmosphere. 

Overall, I enjoyed the process of collaborating with Sander as a new student-led experience and felt our work and dedication towards performing during the recital to be accomplishing and successful.

~from Sander

Looking back on the process as a whole, I have a few large takeaways, a few of which are positive, and a few of which are areas of improvement. 

Firstly, in terms of large ideas, I think that a positive of the recital was how well not only Ayden and I prepared (grew to the occasion to efficiently and effectively do so) and performed the pieces sounding in most cases together. In terms of a large area of improvement that I would note, I think that in many of the pieces, the parts that had previously come out as areas for improvements sounded generally good, however, parts that had not had as much attention seemingly may have had mistakes in them while playing them during the recital, even if they had not in previous practicing.

Moving on into individual piece feedback, going chronologically, I felt that Country Dance was good in terms of the energy that I was able to bring out and character. Overall it felt solid, except for the rhythm section where I kept going back and forth (I suppose that is simply because I was not confident enough with it at the time). 

Next, in terms of Seitz (5.3), the piece overall felt good. I had a special focus on dynamics and character at the beginning, and I felt the articulation of the double stops was sound, however, I did notice that the tempo was not always consistent (i.e. the tempo did not get back to a tempo). 

Further, on Vivaldi (all movements), (similar to what we discussed in lesson) the parts of the piece that we focused on for significant amounts of time no matter if they were challenging or not, seemed to go well. This may have been slightly due to tempo shifts (similar to Seitz). As well, I knew immediately when I started the third movement that I had forgotten to leave the breath in between, even though it had been something we and myself had practiced and tried to internalize. 

Lastly, for German Dance my only notable comment on the piece was that it felt it was going well until I started to, I will say, overthink the fingering, and then it led to the piece sounding partially sloppy and incoherent.

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