Tocca Tocca Don't Stop

 Friday night was my students' recital, and I had this little nut helping me get ready.  In other words, I swept the floor, she applied lip gloss.  To everything.  I wiped off the counter, she spilled hot chocolate.  Big helper!  Hey, at this stage in the game, I am well aware that everything will take twice as long and be twice as much work.  Totally worth it to have my little sidekick for entertainment.

I had ordered a dozen cupcakes from a friend who was doing a fundraiser.  I thought I could give them to each of the kids who played in the recital, but first I had to display them next to Xanthe's Nutcracker Cupcake photos.  Aren't they a cute match!?

I was feeling playful when I typed the recital program.  And re-typed it.  The list of performers kept changing.  There were several iterations of the program, and I'm not even sure if we ended up with any of them.  My recitals are more like master classes-slash-recitals in that it is a chance for the kids to learn how to perform and feel nerves without any pressure.  The venue is casual and noisy kids can leave and go upstairs if they want to.  Also, it's short.  I love that.

Ruby has been giving Ptolemy violin lessons, but only sporadically.  We can never remember when his lesson is, and I haven't taken the full practicing plunge with him.  However, he really wanted a cupcake.  So I added him to the program and he performed Tocca Tocca Stop Stop on the A string and the E string.  After he played it, he burst into tears and cried out, "I don't know how to do it!"  I said, "You just did it!  It's over!  Take a bow!"  He was too overwrought to take the bow that we had practiced and left the stage bawling loudly.  Cutest thing ever, and I didn't get it on video.

Golda and I played a Haydn duet for two flutes that we are working on for Golda's upcoming senior recital.  I am so excited about that, I could die.  That won't be casual like my recitals, though, so I'm also nervous.  It will be a huge culmination of many years of lessons and many hours or practicing, and it's been tons of work for Golda.  It was fun to do this "warm-up lap" on the Haydn.

Greta earned her Twinkle Trophy!

My niece Isabella was at our house, and there's always a chance around here that you'll get conscripted to go to something or be in something that you didn't expect. Izzy nicely volunteered to play a couple of numbers in the recital.  Not the piece that was on the program, but who's counting!?  Actually, I hope someone is counting!  It's a music recital, after all!

I certainly wasn't counting when I gave Araceli her music for a trio arrangement of Silent Night we were doing with one of my students.  I only gave Ari three of the six pages.  Not sure what I was thinking, but it was interesting when she ran out of notes to play halfway through the piece!  The audience wasn't bothered, and Araceli was a good sport about it.  She gamely tried to make something up, but her composition skills aren't quite that advanced yet, so she wisely counted rests.  Alexis and I just kept going without her, until we hit the end of the chorus and everyone started clapping.  I said, "Don't get carried away.  We still have two pages left!  Well, some of us do!"  We had fun.

Ruby and Golda played right at the beginning of the recital, then Scott whisked them off to the ballet.  He watched the game at a restaurant while they saw Giselle, then they all went out to dinner.  Scott is such a great dad.  He had gotten up at 5 to prepare for a trial, then had to wait for the girls until 10 pm.  Then he took them out to dinner!  Scott would probably have just as much trouble as Ptolemy did playing Tocca Tocca Stop Stop.  Because he never stops!  He just keeps on playing.