Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

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

SMAHK Cellists Join 70th Anniversary Concert in Tokyo!

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by Ms Silvia

2025 is the 70th anniversary of Suzuki cello this year! Three weeks ago, on the Sunday of April 6th, I was so lucky to participate in the 26th Suzuki Method Cello Grand Concert at Tokyo together with three cello students. 

The concert was took place at the famous Bunkyo Civic Hall with the attendance of Her Imperial Princess Takamado. It started with the Rachmaninoff cello Sonata performed by Mr. Hiroyasu Yamamoto (Suzuki Method lecturer in cello department), followed by student cello ensemble performance. One of the highlights was seeing our dear “teacher on CD” Mr. Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. Yes! The cello master who recorded book 1-8 Suzuki cello CDs. It meant so much to all the Suzuki cellists to finally meet him in person. Mr Tsutsumi was originally asked to perform, but due to his ongoing treatment of arthritis, he gave an on-stage talk instead. 

The second half of the concert was the grand play in. It started from Book 9 Haydn Cello Concerto first movement. There were about 40 students playing the solo part accompanied by the Suzuki student orchestra. Although it is a very advanced and technically demanding repertoire, they made it looked so easy and sounded so perfectly together. Then it was the traditional play-in which show case a selected repertoire from Book 8 back to Book 1. The last performance was the Twinkle Theme and Variations. There were more than 200 students on stage at this moment. Twinkle is always the last performance of all Suzuki Play in, no matter how many times I hear the students play, I always feel deeply moved at this moment. I was so impressed by the pure intonation and great passionate energy from all the students. The rich warm cello tone filled the hall and gave me goosebumps.

After the concert, I rushed back to the backstage to congratulate my students. They all looked so excited and their eyes filled with joy. Lucia kept saying to me “it felt like the whole world was thrilling resonance with me! And how did so many little ones played so well and advanced? They must practice very hard! I need to go home and practice right now! ”

 This was a truly memorable experience for all of us to be part of this great event. 

Here are the official event photos: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EuFfzq2Qi/

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 of the Performers: Isabel & Chloe Book 2 Recital

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Chloe and Isabel gave their Book 2 Recital on the last Saturday of our Spring Term! Here are their reflections on the experience:

~from Chloe

    I was really excited when I heard my partner was Isabel, since we did our Book 1 Recital together too!
        Isabel and I were both really nervous in the beginning, since there were 5 guests who came to watch, and it was a lot more people than in the dress rehearsal. Consequently, during the first piece—Happy Farmer, Isabel forgot that I was leading, and led the bow, and gave the cue. So of course I was really confused, and messed up the beginning. Fortunately, we somehow managed to start again, with me giving the cue, and the rest of the piece went really well. 
        Our other two joint pieces—Twinkles and Musette was really good. In Twinkles, we both remembered to have eye contact after every section. In Musette, we didn’t forget to do the dynamics and phrasing we were working on the last few weeks. The only thing I think we could have done was a bigger retard and diminuendo in the end.
        I think part of why the joint pieces were really great, is because we practiced them over and over during all the joint lessons, dress rehearsal, and our practice-playdate. Yup! On June 10, Isabel went over to my place and we practiced all our joint pieces with our concert dress on! After 45 minutes of practice, we decided that we were fine, and started to play games! She even stayed for lunch! 
        Anyways, back to the recital. Slowly but surely, I got more confident throughout the performance. I think my best piece that day was Two Grenadiers, since I used my whole bow, did the crescendo, and used my elbow for the up bows, to create a grand forte sound. I also really liked Chorus from “Judas Maccabaeus”, because I used my thumb and elbow together to create beautiful tone. In Boccherini Minuet, I did a lot of dynamics in the C, D, and E sections, but I could definitely make the trills sound clearer. In Hunters Chorus and Gossec Gavotte, my eighth and sixteenth notes were kind of mushed together. I really liked Gavotte from Mignon’s pizzicato ending as well. I did elbow circles, and pulled the strings sideways. 
        After the recital, we had a lot of snacks, drinks, and candy, at the reception. Everyone was just chatting, laughing, and eating. 
        Lastly, I want to thank all the people who have helped me make this recital happen. Ms. Diane, for teaching me all the pieces I performed. Ms. Marie Ann, for organizing everything. My family, for supporting me along. Ms. Sonomi, for collaborating with me. Isabel, for being a great friend and partner. And Isabel’s parents, for bringing the amazing food!
        All in all, the whole recital was a fun and enjoyable experience, and I look forward to my future Book 3 Recital too!

~from Isabel

I think that my book recital with Chloe was successful because we worked well and we could identify what problems there were in our joint pieces and we practised this more when Chloe invited me over to her house and we mostly practised Musette because we needed to practise being in sync. After that, we played with Chloe’s little sister and ate lunch. I think this was a very fun experience and I would like to do another recital with Chloe.

Reflections from the performers: Emma & Andrew Book 2 violin recital

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~ from Andrew

This recital did not go well in the preparation. I had trouble getting my violin ready in time for the practice before the recital; I even forgot to wear the formal clothes and had to re-wear them after I still wore my bright-colored shirt inside my recital uniform. I should have thought about how the clothes would be visible and distract the audience and show that I did not care about the recital, instead just wanting to get over with it.

         Then there was the group practice before the recital. We started great by reviewing the joint pieces together and after playing through the first two pieces, we poorly decided to practice our solos, which was not an instruction you gave us. I really should have listened because later on in the recital I had some trouble paying attention to the tone and listening to my partner.

         Lastly, there is the recital. I think our performance improved as the recital went on. I enjoyed how I listened to my sound to improve my tone. But for me there were some choke points in a few pieces; Ignored ones led to some problems later on as the same section repeated. Sometimes during the joint lessons, we could not remember the practice assignments and we had to review them again, which took a long time.

         The dress rehearsal was troubling for us to play with a good tone. So then I spent lots of time at home practicing tone and correct position so then the recital could go well.  Next recital I should prepare more as the pieces got more advanced as well and mistakes get harder to avoid.

~from Emma

I want to say thankyou to Ms. Diane, my violin teacher, for helping me through this recital.

I liked how I got to play harmony in Musette. Over all the years I have played the violin, the only time I had formally played harmony was for twinkle, so I was really happy when I found out I got to play harmony in Musutte. 

2 months to prepare for a recital seems like a lot at first, that’s what I thought at first. I made a big mistake, I didn’t practice because I had around 2 months to prepare, and pushed everything till the last minute. The few days before my recital, I had to sleep very late just to make up for the time I had lost.

During the recital I felt really nervous, I had spent enough time for people to think it is an average recital. But deep down, I know I could’ve done much better.

This was the busiest time of my life, I had to juggle practicing the violin, school work and practicing the piano for the last few weeks. It was supposed to be less busy, but I didn’t use my time well, and suffered greatly from it. But from this recital I learned a great lesson to never waste your time as you can never relive a moment of your life.

“Time is free, but it is priceless. You can’t own it, but you can spend it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” – Harvey MacKay

When I have my book 3 recital, I should plan out my time better, so I can have more time to rest, and still have enough time to practice my violin.

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Reflections from the Performers: Lincoln & Miles ~ Book 2 Violin Recital

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Miles and Lincoln were excited to welcome the largest in person audience to a Book Recital since before COVID! They have some thoughts to share about their experience together:

~from Lincoln

I believe that the recital was quite successful. One of the reasons is that there were no major mistakes and I firmly believe both me and Miles played beautiful music that allowed the massive audience to clap loudly. In Twinkle, I think I should have paid a little more attention to Miles as I was completely focused on myself. I would like to thank you for helping me develop my music and Ms Sonomi for being piano accompaniment. I think that I have prepared a lot for my recital in the 20 mins of time to practise. I think that I should have practised more pieces  rather than just a few. I believe my playing with Miles of Musette has significantly improved. We were together more and we played it better than the last time. I firmly believe that overall, the recital was a success, however had some flaws such as the twinkle where I accidentally played theme instead of harmony for a few seconds in variation E. 

~from Miles

My recital went well, and I am proud of how I did. I think I worked well with my partner and have done good ques for both Ms.Sonomi and my partner while leading. Overall I did much better than last time, and hope all future recitals are as good as this. The main concerns I had when I was told the recitals’s date was me forgetting the forms of the pieces, but after getting used to the pieces again, I found the forms not too difficult. The joint lessons also helped a lot as we focused a lot on ques and how to lead, which neither me or my teammate really did well before the joint lessons.

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