Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

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

Orchestra and Chamber Music Concert

By

  • Orchestra performing
  • all of our orchestra and chamber music performers!
  • Ms Yuko leading the orchestra
  • Trinius
  • Fruits Salad Quartet
  • Dim Sum Quartet
  • Quick Quick Quartet
  • Anticipation Quartet

The second weekend of June, our end of year celebrations continued with a return to Sai Kung for our Spring Term Orchestra and Chamber Music Concert. Once again, this concert was held in the fabulous performance space at Hong Kong Academy.

In our orchestra and chamber music program this term, there was a Mozart theme: every chamber group performed a movement from a piece written by Mozart, and one of the orchestra’s selections was also written by Mozart.

The orchestra and all of the chamber groups demonstrated the efforts that they put in over the term in learning to be great teammates in their ensembles. Throughout the performances, you could see the performers communicating with one another, and the orchestra members watching Ms. Yuko for their cues.

The teachers are already excited for Fall, 2019 to watch the students’ ensemble skills continue to grow!

Congratulations to all of the students, Ms. Yuko, Ms. Ryoko and Ms. Shoko for their hard work!

Annual Graduation Concert

By

  • Piano graduates
  • Violists
  • Go for the Gold award winners
  • Twinkle students
  • Cellists
  • Twinkle students presenting graduation certificates
  • Parent Graduating from violin Level 1
  • Violinists
  • SMAHK Student community

The end of the Spring Term brought a whirlwind of activity and celebration!

The month of June started with our annual Graduation Concert. This year, we had graduates representing every instrument studied at SMAHK. Graduates included all of the first six violin Graduation levels, as well as a parent graduating from Violin Level 1! Our Twinkle students were wonderful in their role as presenters of the Graduation Certificates!

In addition to celebrating the Graduation Levels, medals were awarded to the winners of our annual “Go for the Gold” Challenge. This year’s theme was review. It was exciting to see so many students on stage wearing medals for the end of the concert.

We continued our tradition of ending the concert with Dr. Suzuki’s “Wishing”, sung in both Japanese and English and played by our more advanced students:

“We are all good children. Mother, Father, help us try to do our very best. Every Child Can Learn. Father, Mother, help us try to do our very best”.

Congratulations to all of the students, parents and teachers!

Reflections from the Performers: Oliver and Roger, Book 3 Recital

By

On Saturday, 18 May, Oliver and Roger gave their Book 3 Recital. Here are their thoughts about the experience.

~from Roger

Over the course of these few months, me and my partner(Oliver) have been preparing for our annual book 3 recital, where we graduate from our books, in this case book 3, and move on to explore and learn new pieces to play in book 4. In order to get ready for this performance in the academy, we have prepared “Crossover Lessons”, where either of us would go to each others lessons to first discuss who would be doing what, call back our long memories fragments of pieces, learn a few extra duets and practice daily until we thought they were the best that we could make do for the program. Unfortunately, some of the lessons that we were supposed to attend were canceled, mostly because one of us was sick at the time and the other forgot to attend the lesson at all. But, surprisingly, we still managed to pull of a good recital.

~ from Oliver

Within a few months, my partner (Roger) and I worked together to prepare for our Annual Book Recital. The hardest part in the early stages was deciding who was going to play which piece. I think Roger and I handled it quite well as we decided to have Roger choose which he wants in the first two songs and I chose within the second two. To get ready for our duet pieces, we had to find a time in our classes to get together to practice. I, being the forgetful person I am, forgot about it twice. But we found time to make up for it and practised our pieces and duets. During that class we polished our duets and have the opportunity to play together instead of by ourselves at home. Practicing together allowed us to figure out how loud we should play or fix our timing. All in all, I think we managed to do a great recital and I am very proud of Roger and my work.

Refections from the Performer: Audrey Shia

By

Audrey gave her Book 8 violin recital, assisted by Ms. Ryoko and Ms. Sonomi. It was great to see that there were friends who came to listen to the recital as well!

Here are Audrey’s thoughts about her recital:

~by Audrey

After 3 years of hard work, I have finally finished my book 8 recital. This year’s recital was so much different compared to the Book 7 one. I feel so relieved and grateful. I want to thank my parents, for supporting and assisting me. I’d like to thank Ms. Ryoko, for putting so much effort into teaching me. I’d like to thank Miss Sonomi, for accompanying me in the recital, even though the recital was 90 minutes long. Last but not least, I’d like to thank my friends for coming to watch me and support me!

Reflections from the Performers: Angie and Emily

By

Emily and Angie performed their Book 4 cello recital, assisted by Ms. Shoko on piano. They did some of the rehearsal preparation independently, and some with Ms. Sandra and Ms. Shoko. Here are their thoughts about the experience:

~from Angie

I am glad to have book 4 recital last Saturday. Thank you for coming. 

I’m very very nervous throughout the whole performance, my heart beat was more than 100 per minute (usually I am 80 something).

In my first piece Sonata in E minor by Marcello, I thought I was playing well with dynamics, however I was so nervous, I forgot to play with all vibrato.

For the second piece, Minuets in G major by J S Bach, the phrase was not clear enough and my dynamics should be more clear. Overall I think this one was average. I should be more confident while playing this piece.

While I am playing with Emily, I thought we did a good job. Most of the notes were clear and with dynamics. 

Finally I thought I did a great job in this recital. Next time I will do it better.

Thank you very much. 

~from Emily

I enjoyed playing in the  recital with Angie and I felt very good after doing it because it felt like a good goal to have completed . I think that Angie and Ms Shoko did very well and I’m very glad that I wasn’t playing all the pieces myself, partly because it ( as Ms Sandra said) was like running a marathon while playing Breval. Altogether I think that the recital went very well. 

Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong believes:

Follow us on Facebook