A fun night! It was very cold, and snow is predicted, which tends to keep folks in this town behind closed doors. But not tonight! Tonight was our annual Winter Cabaret, an event for my piano students to show off what they've learned since the Halloween Recital, and an excuse to keep them practicing over the school break.
New this year, I invited alumni to perform. Alumnae, actually. One former student has "graduated" from piano to clarinet. She and her sister played a piano/clarinet duet that was beautiful. This same sister is studying music and anthropology, and opened the program with Mendelssohn, and knocked my socks off! The third alumna is a music theater major this year; she and her brother played a piano/violin duet, also spectacular. Around these three acts, my younger students offered their own fare, from Ode to Joy and Jingle Bells to The Dreidle Song and Silent Night. We also heard a heartfelt performance of The Christmas Song, from A Charlie Brown Christmas. This last piece was still iffy at the lesson earlier this week, but what a little pressure can do for the practice curve!
The Winter Cabaret has become a favorite performance venue. Low-key, with cookies and apple cider, with Playdough (to mold young musicians) and pen and paper (to draw on their creativity), everyone participates in one way or another. The format has changed over the years, but always enjoyed by all.
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