Our Christmas Performances, All In One Busy Weekend

In some ways, knowing how to play a musical instrument is both a blessing and a curse...particularly around the Christmas season. It is wonderful to be able to play beautiful music for yourself and those around you, particularly around the holidays, when people listen to more music and the songs are well-known to all. However, in order to perform, you've got to practice and prepare, and that requires time...something that is often in short supply in November and December.

Over the last several years, I have always found myself especially busy with music at the end of the year. Usually, it involves me either performing on my own or accompanying singers for various Christmas programs (many of them church-related). In more recent years, I've also started holding piano recitals every Christmas for all my students; while I'm not performing in those recitals, I'm organizing them, which brings its own special stress.

And now that my oldest daughter has started taking piano lessons herself (and is in music classes at school), she is appearing in musical concerts of her own, which is one more thing to add to our Christmas to-do list. She has been playing the recorder (that simplest and shrillest of all band instruments) in her third-grade music class. For the first time, the music director at our charter school decided to invite these younger kids to participate in the school's Christmas concert. Up until now, this concert had been the exclusive domain of the school's jazz band. But I thought it was a nice idea to give the younger music students some performance experience.

Here is Lorelai's class performing "Jingle Bells," all on recorders. Brace yourself...

We were proud that she did well. She has started practicing the recorder more at home, and she has improved quite a bit. Sadly, we had to leave the concert a bit early (we didn't get to hear the advanced jazz band play; darn!), because we were needed elsewhere--specifically, we were needed in setting up a Christmas tree for our ward Christmas party the following night.

This picture frame was one of the decorations at our ward party

Which brings us to some more performances! The theme of the Christmas party this year was "Christmas Around The World," which made for a nicely eclectic dinner (tamales, sushi, rice pudding, potato salad, etc.) and some non-traditional decorations. The main event of the night was a short concert which featured music and/or dancing from all around the world. Both Lorelai and I participated.

I played a piano arrangement of the "Trepak/Russian Dance" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. I chose this song because it is: A. very Russian; it's the most "Russian-y" of all the Nutcracker dances; B. Christmas-y (because it's from The Nutcracker); and C. quite short; it only takes about a minute and a half to play. I didn't record my performance (which was a blessing; I'll explain in a moment), but here is a video recording of the same arrangement I played:

Sadly, I didn't do all that well at the concert, for a few reasons. I had forgotten I was going to play the song, and didn't practice it far enough in advance. I was ill with a fever and chills that night, and didn't really want to do anything in front of people, much less play piano. And finally, I ended up playing the song on an electronic keyboard which I had never before practiced on, so I was totally unprepared for the dynamic & keystroke differences. Oh well; at least I went first in the program so I could quickly be forgotten about! In spite of all that, it was still a really cool song to learn and play. Maybe if I get a better head-start next year, I can really turn some heads with a "Trepak" performance at some other venue.

You can tell we're in a church building by the raised basketball hoop at the top of the picture

Lorelai's dance number was a little more successful. The Activity Day girls (all girls in the church between 8-11 years old) learned an easy Eastern European holiday step dance, and performed it at the concert just a few acts after my piano fumblings. They had all of one hour to learn this song, and they wore no costumes, but at least it looked like they were having fun!

I crashed and burned that night after the ward activity was finished; my fever had come on the night before (in the middle of the school concert, natch), and I had one more Christmas concert to go that weekend--the piano recital for my own students!

Luckily, a good night's sleep helped me feel a lot better in time for the recital the next evening. I have been teaching ten piano students all fall, and it has been tiring but very satisfying. I have several older kids (9+ years old) now, and it is very exciting to see how quickly they are all learning their music and improving each week. Teaching Lorelai has also been a great experience; I think she has reached that point where she "gets it," and has a solid grasp of the basics. It has made her enjoy playing piano that much more! Here she is, performing one of her recital songs.

And here are all of my awesome students, basking in glory after the recital was done!

The bishop of my LDS ward kindly lent us the use of his house for the second straight Christmas; I don't think we'd be able to fit everyone in my house! At any rate, it is very generous of him and his lovely wife, and I am so grateful to know so many kind, helpful people that helped the piano recital become a reality.

This is me, sick and exhausted but still happy at how well everything turned out

So, to recap:

Thursday night--school Christmas concert/my fever began/decorate the church building for party;
Friday night--Christmas party, in which Lorelai and I each perform;
Saturday afternoon--piano recital. That night, we also attended a large Christmas party thrown by a friend. Nathan and I went there for a little decompression time after a stressful weekend. And, as luck would have it, the school's jazz band was performing at the party! Thus the circle of musical performance was made complete.

My musical know-how was required one more time this holiday season...it was at our ward's Sunday sacrament meeting, on December 22nd. I am currently our ward's choir director, so I had to lead the choir in two different Christmas songs, and later accompany two flutists performing "What Child Is This?". After that, I was happy to take my fingers off the keys until after the holidays. But what sweet music was made this year, by so many talented people. It's hard work, but it really does make the Christmas season so much more enjoyable.