Suzuki Music Academy of Hong Kong

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

Reflections from the Performers: SANDER & STEPHEN

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Sander and Stephen gave their Book 3 recital on Saturday, 6 March, 2021. They each had one parent and their private teacher as part of the live audience, as well as family and friends joining on Zoom. Here are their thoughts about the experience:

from Sander

Recently I shared a book recital with Stephen. It was a fun and enjoyable experience playing at the recital and practicing/preparing for it. I learned one important piece of information about practicing for a performance in the process, and that is the importance of perfecting the beginning as everything stems off of it, so if you have a solid and confident beginning the piece will sound great.

from Stephen

Before the recital started I felt really nervous but when it started I felt more anxious. On the first song martini govatte I felt ok because I had been practicing it. After that I felt ok with the over songs until  Bach Bouree before I even played that song my hands started to sweat because when  I practiced Bach bouree it was the hardest song to practice. After Bach Bouree I felt ok again and after the recital finished I felt Happy. I loved playing the pieces that either Sanders would play the harmony and I play the melody or Sander would play the melody and I play the harmony, because I don’t feel so nervous playing with Sander even if I feel a bit nervous when I play the hard parts in Bach minuet or Govatte in G minor. When it  was picture time I made silly faces because I love doing that when it comes to picture time.

Studio Recitals

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SMAHK was so fortunate to be able to have our studio recitals in person over the past several weeks. We all enjoyed having the opportunity to share music together in the same place! The audience was very enthusiastic, even though much smaller than usual due to distancing guidelines.

We hope you enjoy these photos as much as we all enjoyed the performances!

Reflections from the Performers: Book 3 Violin Recital ~ Margaret and Stacey

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~from Margaret

This recital was such a learning curve. All throughout the past month or so we have been planning trying to make a recital in the situation we are in. I learned that making videos for a recital and having to play things virtually without a live accompaniment is really hard. When you play without someone beside you playing the piano can also be hard. When not on a speaker it can also affect not being on time with the piano like in the recital. I could not hear the accompaniment to Humoresque that is why I did not end on the same time. I and Stacey both did things wrong sometimes one started too early and somehow in the Twinkle we were not together. In Humoresque my speaker was not working and the pitch in the slow me downer app but then we fixed it on our side. 50% of the things that went wrong I blame me but the other half is because we were doing this online. I really enjoyed making this with Stacey but also hope I can do my next recital in person.

~ from Stacey

The coronavirus made our recital really hard to handle, We had to do it online and record videos in order to make me and Margaret’s duet work.

We had a lot of difficulties when making videos and practicing, for example for the duet videos we got notes and bowings wrong sometimes so we had to record all over again and I need to listen to Margaret and Miss Sonomi’s left hand while I play the Minuet duet.

I practiced hard and memorized my bowings and notes so I would not play it wrong when I am recording the videos, I also requested help from Miss Monica when I feel confused about the piano parts.

I understand that the coronavirus is making big changes in our life but I still enjoyed our virtual recital because I get to invite family and friends to my recital, unlike real life we can’t. The only part I did not like about the online recital was that I and Margaret could not really congratulate each other after playing and we always need to be on mute!

Next time I think I should focus more on my dynamics when recording and playing so that the audience can hear my rich strong tone also my light heavenly tone. 

Thanks to Suzuki my book three recital was still pretty perfect.

Reflections from the Performers: Sander & Ayden Book 2 Violin Recital

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Sander & Ayden’s Book 2 Violin Recital: 15 November, 2019

On Friday, 15 November, Ayden and Sander performed their Book 2 violin recital in front of a big audience of family and friends. Here are their thoughts on the experience:

Ayden

~Ayden’s reflection

Last Friday, I had my violin book 2 recital with Sander. Although I felt a little nervous, but mostly felt excited of having many friends came to support us. I was nervous on Gavotte from Mignon piece because I lost track a bit towards the end of the song. However, I felt very confident to play my solo pieces and pieces that I played with Sander. 

Many thank to Ms. Diane and Ms. Ryoko by teaching me how to perform well with my partner in the recital.  I learnt how to give more clearer cue as a leader and copy the articulations, dynamics and bow divisions from the leader. Last but not the least, thank you Ms. Shoko for piano accompaniment. I look forward to having my next book recital! 

Sander

~Sander’s reflection

At first I really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it at all until the actual recital. Now looking back I sort of wish that I could’ve had a more positive view on this. At the practice recitals they seemed more stressful than real one. In the end everything seemed to work out well. It was even a bit enjoying to play for our our guests.


My final thoughts are, hard work definitely pays off in the end and have fun while you’re doing it.

Thank you to all of the friends who joined the recital, and Congratulations to Ayden and Sander on their work!

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

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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.

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