Amy and Hugo performed their Book 3 cello recital together. It was Amy’s first-ever Book Recital! The two students worked together with Ms Silvia to prepare their joint pieces, as well as working on their solo repertoire. Here is what they each have to say about the experience:

~from Amy

I heard this new was on January 25. That was so challenging and exciting for me because it is the first time I have to play so much music at once. 

Initially, I played most of my time for my recital while I was free. Sometimes I was not at home, and I could not bring my cello I would take the music with me, and once I was free, I could take a look on it and played on my mind. 

There were also some difficulties to solve before the recital. For example, I often mixed up how to play accompaniment of Allegro Moderato cause there are some alto clefs in the music, and I have already remembered the cello 1 of Allegro Moderato, they are quite similar. Thus, when I was playing with Hugo, I often forgot to play my part. The bowings of Twinkle are proper. Actually, it corrects some mistakes that have been affecting me for long times. I need to put my bow closer to the bridge and use the prescribed section of the bow. These can make my tone more resounding and stronger. Fortunately, these issues were resolved with the help of Ms. Silvia. Ms. Silvia carefully taught how to solve these problems and promptly reminded me whenever they occurred.

Before the recital started, I feel so much pressure because I afraid that I would screw up the concert and there were so many people rooting for me, so I pretended I was a professional cellist who has appeared in concert many times. That is so funny.

It was surprising that I gradually feel relaxed when I was performing. I tried to show the beautiful tone as best as I can. There was a voice in my heart to remind me and said, ‘you can do it’. I hope I can do better in the future concert than this time and let them unforgettable. For the whole concert, one thing I must change was I do not wait for Hugo before I started play Minuet in G. I feel deeply regretful after the recital, and I promise this sort of things won’t happened again.

Finally, thanks to all the audiences who came to see the recital and Hugo and all the teachers who helped me to finish the concert.

~from Hugo

This was a very difficult recital to prepare for as I was not able to play cello for a week as I fractured my ankle, this not only meant that I lost one week of practice but i also forgot a lot of things that we worked on and we had to start over, so I had to practice a lot more than I intended to, but i was able to persevere through and successfully complete my recital.  I really liked working with Amy as I can tell she is really dedicated which is something I lack.  If I could do this recital again I would practice more so I feel prepared and calm before the recital, I think I played quite well but I could definitely do much better as I was very nervous and was playing faster than we practiced and probably could have played better if I was more calm.