My Book 8 Recital was the culmination of so, so many hours of practice and rehearsals. So while yes, it did have mistakes and rougher sections, I would consider it an immense accomplishment overall.

Something that I am especially proud of was the progress I made especially in the week leading up to the recital. Before that, I was juggling academics and finals, so once finals week was over, I was able to better engage in practicing. Furthermore, because my dress rehearsal was only two days before the recital, this forced me to really hone in on the specific rhythmic errors that I had in addition to the musical elements that I worked on in my lessons. I think that my last lesson before the recital was extremely pivotal to how I was able to express the phrasings and dynamics in pieces like the 1st movement in the Veracini Sonata and the 3^rd movement of Eccles Sonata. While the dynamics of the Veracini were challenging to remember at first, I later faced more difficulty with the triplet rhythms — something that was a common theme across many of my pieces. However, I am overall quite proud of how those pieces turned out.

A sonata I’d like to focus on is the Bach Sonata in C Major, which I played the 3^rd and 4^th movements of. These pieces were definitely a challenge on many fronts (the phrasing in the 3rd movement, memorising the 4th movement, lines, dynamics, shape, just to name a few), but the most interesting of them was switching to playing with a baroque bow. At first, I couldn’t get used to how the bow didn’t feel like it was actually on the string, which made me press harder to compensate and then created a scratchy sound. However, I learnt to use my arm more and have a better contact point, which is something that helped greatly in creating a smoother sound (though it is very much still in progress).

Above all, the Book 8 Recital reflected huge development in both me as a musician and as a person. With the added responsibilities of scheduling all of my rehearsals with Ms. Sonomi and creating my recital poster and programme, the recital was a large undertaking and something that I am very proud of having accomplished (and happy to have had completed!)

But most importantly, I would like to give a massive thank you to Ms. Sonomi for all her hours of rehearsals and practice with me and for tolerating all of my slip-ups and tempo inconsistencies while helping me through them all. To Ms. Diane, thank you so much for going over the same mistakes with me over and over and helping me through them while making the end goal feel perfectly attainable. Last but not least, thank you Ms. Marie Ann for your amazing administrative work and moral support — none of this would be possible without you!