Recital Success!

            We had two recitals on Thursday, and two on Saturday. We survived! And so did the students.  Everyone who was on the programs to perform showed up except one girl who had to finish up some homework at school.  They came!

            However, none of the recitals started on time. And we certainly didn’t have audience members sitting on all the chairs we set up. On Thursday, after our morning class, we set up as many folding chairs as we comfortably could. John Mann had said that the students would come, and they would bring their families, and we would be surprised at how many would come.

            However, our first recital on Thursday was already one big family.  Most of the eight adults were related, and were parents of the ten young children.  At 3:00 p.m., when the program was supposed to start on time, we had a couple of adults and several children. But then they came, dressed in their Sunday clothes.  The youngest, Valentina Garcia, sat on her assigned small folding chair, and sucked on her baby bottle of milk.  We involved the youngsters in clapping rhythms and wiggling finger numbers while the adults played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. The children also sang Twinkle in English, which delighted the audience, and sang three verses of Away in a Manger while the adults performed.

The youngest participants waiting for the recital to begin.

Posing before the recital.

Reading my introductory speech.

Rita is proud of her certificate and card with 35 stickers. 

Megan knew the children would count the stickers, so she made sure each card had 35.

The man in the background to the left is her dad and the bishop.

The students pose after the Thursday 3 p.m. recital.

The very happy lady is Yanira, the Primary President.

Megan posing with the children outside after the program.

            The adults actually played their hymn solos better than they had during rehearsals. In the first recital, Guadalupe, who is a grandfather of most of the children in this group finished his hymn with a big smile and took his bow. Each of his fingers were as wide as the keys, and when we started lessons, it took several days for him to find the muscles to control the fingers individually.

            For each recital, the students had been assigned a different hymn, but on Monday three teenage sisters informed me they needed to perform in the first recital on Thursday. Guadalupe didn’t seem to mind that two of the sisters performed “his” hymn as a duet in the same recital.

Megan points to finger numbers while I play solo to Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

            In each recital, the students performed their chosen hymn alone, then played while the audience sang all the verses. We practiced bows before the recitals, which was something new for all the students.  The group bows were the most difficult to perfect, but at the recitals, the students were obviously proud of their group performances as they stood and bowed together.  I expected the students to do what my Texas students do – to look at their parents before and after their bows. But instead, each student bowed and then with an expectant look turned their heads to look at me. It was easy for me to give each student an encouraging comment and broad smile. Then the students responded with big smiles and looked at their families.

            Megan brought pencils and pencil sharpeners with music symbols as gifts for students. We taped them to colorful motivational cards and Megan presented them to all the students 12 years and younger. I presented every student with a participation certificate. We took group photos after every recital.

            The second recital on Thursday scheduled for 5 p.m. listed eight children ages 8-12, and one 18-year-old young man named Pablo, who really wanted to be in a recital, but couldn’t come any other time. But no one showed up at 5:00 except for several adults who performed in the first recital and stayed to be audience members for the second recital. It started raining. Knowing all the children had walked to their class each day, I wondered if the rain would stop them. Finally, at 5:15 I went outside in the rain to see if they were coming. I looked up the hill, and here came the three Sanchez children, dressed in their Sunday clothes, and clutching their piano books close to keep them dry in the rain.

Someone please email me how to turn these pictures around? They are correct in my files, but go horizontal when I select them for the blog.

     Delwin Sanchez wore a white pair of cotton gloves to keep his hands warm before the performance. I don’t know where he got that idea, but he insisted on practicing with them on, and took them off when I said it was time to begin.

            By 5:30, all of the students except one girl arrived, all smiling and excited. I asked where their parents were, and they told me they were working, but trying to come. So we played our program, and by the time we finished we had an audience. We demonstrated a game to help students learn to hear different intervals using a water spray bottle and an umbrella. We demonstrated how the students could count and clap rhythms, and then we performed the first part of our program again.

Students in our Thursday 5 p.m. recital - except for Gonzales in the front.

He attended classes with the younger children who participated in the Thursday 3 p.m. recital. 

            After this recital, the students asked me to autograph their piano books. This class had decorated the plain covers of their books with colored pencils. The children hugged me repeatedly. No one wanted to leave. I talked to the parents and the students about the importance of practicing every day, and moving forward in their piano books, even if it is challenging. I told them that Adaly has offered to help answer questions, and will be asking them each week if they are practicing.

            Megan played Fur Elise at the end of three of the programs to motivate the students. I told them it was a sample of what they might be able to play in four years if they practice one hour every day.  She did not play Fur Elise at the end of Saturday’s morning program because Jose was performing it as a solo in addition to his hymn.

            I thought if we could get through the two programs on Thursday, Saturday would be easier. It was. But again, no one was on time. Our 11 a.m. recital had several adults riding two buses to get to Ciudad Vieja.  After Jorge dropped us off at the church, he went to pick up his family. However, the late start only bothered me.; I have not adjusted to the Guatemala custom of leaving home for a meeting at the time the meeting is scheduled to begin.

            Our 11 a.m. recital consisted of our morning class, which met for three hours each day instead of 45 minutes like the four afternoon classes. This group even completed the first Four Levels of the Texas Music Teachers Association Theory Tests. They learned all of the major key signatures, and were good sports about playing games to reinforce theory principles.  Because we had more time together, we became better acquainted with each other.

            I was impressed with Jorge who had to leave school after first grade to work. His mother died when he was eight. The piano classes are his first classroom experience of any kind since first grade. When I told the class I had decided that having recitals was not the best plan, that it would have been better to just invite family and friends to the last day of class, Jorge raised his hand and asked to speak. He said he thought it was important that the students have an opportunity to present themselves to their families. He is not familiar with the hymns we learned, but he has worked hard. The end of his second finger is missing after the third joint, , but we joked that it is one less finger to try to curve.  I think of all the students I was most pleased with the progress of Jorge at the recitals on Saturday.

            But then there is Adaly, who memorized a hymn using the “real” hymn book. She asked the first week if she could play Divina luz for her solo hymn, and I told her it was difficult, and recommended she choose a hymn from our lesson book. She said she thought she could learn it – after all, she said, we’d learned the names of all the notes, understood sharps and flats and fingering, and how to count, so why couldn’t she?  The next day she showed up with her pocket-size hymnal with all the notes labeled in all four parts. I thought she’d give up, but at least I had enough compassion to give her my regular-sized hymnal, and to recommend that she learn just the soprano – only the top notes of the right hand. She looked disappointed, and asked if she learned the right hand, could she play the left hand with it.  In the end, on her own, she doubled the soprano line in the left hand, and performed today with the hymn memorized, and no mistakes playing the hymn four times while the audience sang all the verses.

John Mann is reaching in a Guatemalan purse to get Megan's beautiful Jade plaque. 

She is holding the letter he has just read to her.

I also presented her with a bracelet.

       

These are the students in our Saturday, 11:00 a.m. recital.

Our final recital on Saturday was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., but didn’t begin until 1:30 because five of the eight stunts had to ride two buses from Paramos, which takes 50 minutes each way, and the buses were slower because of the rain.  As I listened to Lesly, who is nine years old, and her brother, Jose, who is ten, play their solos perfectly and continue without mistakes while the audience sang the verses, I had big hopes that they will be accompanying their Sunday meetings in a few years.  Paramos has 172 people meeting in a larger building than Ciudad Vieja, and no piano.

These are the students in our Saturday, 1:00 p.m. recital.




Lesley smiles while warming up for the recital.
Yes, I know the tables are two high. John Mann says that can be fixed next time we come.

            John Mann surprised Megan and myself with beautiful engraved jade plaques thanking us for our contribution to the community. Students gave me four beautiful Guatemalan purses and a cake.

            But it was the hugs that meant the most.