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Kevin and Michelle waiting for their turn to play the piano. For Kevin this is really dressing up! he nearly died when he saw most of the kids wearing a jacket and tie. |
Xu Xu showed up at little later...
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2008 Certificate of Merit Honors recital - 3/29/08
This is the first year that Kevin was selected to play in the CM honors recital. In order to be selected to play in the honors recital the student has to meet the following criteria:
The student earns a rating of Good or Excellent on Technique.
The student earns a rating of Average or above on Sight-reading.
The student receives 80% or above on the Theory Exam.
All pieces in piano and strings are memorized.
The evaluator nominates the student for Branch Honors.
Beside Kevin, Michelle and Xu Xu was also selected to play in the Honors recital. Mrs. Rocklin, Kevin's piano teacher, keeps insisting that Kevin attend this concert because it is an honor to be selected. Anyway, here we are at the church, the recital is held at the Lutheran Church, we look around and to our surprise most of the kids are so well dressed up. Most of them were wearing jacket and tie! I guess they take this concert very seriously. We also noticed that out of the 24 students, 4 were Vietnamese (3 from our group), 2 Caucasian and the remaining 18 were Chinese!
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Kevin and Michelle waiting for their turn to play the piano. For Kevin this is really dressing up! he nearly died when he saw most of the kids wearing a jacket and tie. |
Xu Xu showed up at little later...
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The trio after the concert was over.
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I have to say that the kids performed very well and were proud of them! |
The kids posing with Marsha Rocklin, their Piano teacher. Marsha is a very Piano teacher. She is very strict and expect a lot from her students. This is a good thing because the kids have to practice to meet her expectation. |
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Only students from Level 7 to 10 are selected to be part of the Honors program. Kevin is in Level 7 (entry level), Michelle and Xu Xu are in level 8. The program is classified by difficulty of the song. Kevin is first to play, meaning his song is the easiest to play on the program. Two third into the program, the level of difficulty is definitely reaching another level. Hoa and I we looked at each other and we are so impressed at how the students are performing their song. You can almost feel they are totally absorbed by the music, feeling every notes they are playing.... Most of the students on level 10 and advanced level blew off our socks. They are so incredible that we though we are actually going to a real concert with professional pianists. I can't really describe how impressed we were with their performance but they really rock! It was just Wow!
I am not sure how they trained their kids to reach this level but I am sure the kids must practiced at least more than a few hours a day to get to where they are.
After the concert Kevin told us he was embarrassed with his little song, but to put things in perspective, the song that Kevin played is 4/5 pages long and it took him about a year to memorized and play it well so just imagine the work they have to put in at Level 10.
Kevin told us if this concert was a competition the only way he could win is for the judges to be totally drunk and deft! Anyway, Kevin should be proud to be selected to play in the Honors recital.
