Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

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

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.

Grand Group Class Concert!

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In spite of a location change requiring additional logistics and organisation from every student and family, SMAHK held its annual Grand Group Class Concert on Sunday, 8 December.

Due to the efforts of Ester Li (mother of Caleb and Chloe), we were able to have the concert at the Church of All Nations chapel at Hong Kong International School. We are very grateful to Ester, and to Pastor Joel and Megan from HKIS. The chapel was a very warm and inviting environment; all week, we have been receiving comments by email and in person from people who thoroughly enjoyed the concert venue.

Our theme for this year is “Beautiful Tone, Beautiful Heart”. There is no better time for us to be sharing our hearts with one another through our music. The concert was a wonderful example of this, with all of the group classes performing repertoire designed to share our tone and hearts together.

Thank you to all of the parents who helped with the set up before the concert, as well as to all of the students and parents for their preparations before the concert. What a wonderful spirit of community to take with us into the holiday season!

MusiCares Performance: St James’ Settlement Wun Sha Elderly Centre

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MusiCares students donated their time on 14 December to perform for the elderly at St. James’ Settlement Wun Sha Elderly Centre. It was the first visit to an elderly home for some MusiCares members, and it was great that the audience was so engaged in the performance! Here are some of the MusiCares members’ reflections on the experience:

“I experienced altruism”

“The community there was very enthusiastic and interacted with our playing, making for a very heartwarming experience.”

“From this experience of playing violin at the elderly home, I really enjoyed the audience clapping along with us while we played, and interacting as well.”

“I genuinely enjoyed this experience, as I got to see the wonderful interactions between the music and the elderly. Such a pleasure to see!”

“I enjoyed this experience. This is the first time that I go to an elderly home and perform. I enjoyed the performance today, and I hope I can go to perform again next time”

“I enjoyed this unique experience very much. I was very, very glad to see the elderly be so happy because of the music. I am happy because I have the privilege to spread joy”

“This experience made me understand music can bring happiness to others. I enjoyed this experience very much. Next time I wish that more people can come and enjoy our performance”

“This experience made me really happy to see others so happy. I really hope that next time the same feeling will come and that more people will come to enjoy the sound of music”

“The opportunity today for people is one that doesn’t occur very often, and because of that, I found this experience very special. It makes me happy to bring some music to the elderly home and share the Christmas Spirit with them”

“Even though it was my first time I think I enjoyed it as much as everyone else did”

  • Presenting gifts to the audience members
  • After the performance, gift-giving
  • The audience suddenly started clapping along during one of the pieces, so we encouraged them to continue!
  • Charlotte was our spokesperson at this performance

Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong believes:

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