An Early End of Year Concert

Today was the big End of Year Concert at the music school I teach at. It's not really the end of the year as there is still Term Four to go, but because of renovations to the school hall and the November elections, it was decided to bring it forward to the end of Term Three.

I've been preparing my students for the past three weeks, trying to get them ready and so I was probably more nervous than they were before the concert! 

I asked them all to get to the school half an hour before the concert as I wanted to have a run through with them. The recorders would be the first to perform, then the flutes and then the violins. 

I got half of them to practise with Aonghas on the keyboard while I practised with the other half of them just to save time. 

We only just had enough time to have a group photo before the concert started!

My first year students started off the concert, performing Easter Bunny, Playing in Parts and Two Birds Together. I was a little worried about them as one of them went camping and so missed last week's lesson. The most pleasant surprise was that they played very well!

My first second year class then performed Puff the Magic Dragon, Triplet Round and Little Brown Jug with Aonghas on keyboard. They also did very well which made me very proud, as they must've practised heaps over the past week!

My next second year class performed Donna Nobis Pacem, I Like the Flowers and When Johnny Comes Marching Home with Aonghas on keyboard.

My last second year class (who I've taught the treble recorder to) performed Scarborough Fair, Putta Nera Ballo Furlano and The World in Union (to get in the Rugby World Cup spirit!). The tunes involving all four of the different recorders sounded really neat!

To finish off the recorder section of the concert, I got all my students to come up to perform It's a Small World. Even though I had practised the song with everyone only once earlier this morning before the concert, they managed to pull it off! I was so proud of my students!

After the recorders were done, the flute students performed. Rebecca, Joylynn and Nadine who go to the same church as me all performed, and I also saw some of my ex-students which was really cool!

The violins finished off the concert. Nadine also learns violin so she performed with her class, and our class performed last.

It was really good to see all the students performing today and I was so proud of my recorder students! I had a lot of positive comments from parents and other teachers so I can relax a bit now, and just hope I don't lose too many students to other instruments next year!