Spring Recital 2017

Another recital come and gone! Every year, we become more organized in preparing and setting up and our students impress with their exciting performances. This year’s annual recital was held at West Point Grey Baptist Church again, and we enjoyed using their beautiful space and piano. Below are some pictures in a slideshow and videos from the event.

Recital Part 1

Recital Part 2

A big thank you again to all the parents who give all their support every year and who were probably just as nervous as their children who were performing. Also, Melody’s sister, Michelle spent the entire afternoon with us managing the video camera to make sure that each performance was captured and we wouldn’t have survived without her!

We are already looking forward to the next performance, so to all our students: Keep practicing and making music!

Ready for the recital?

We finished the rehearsal for our recital today! A few more days until the actual recital! Let’s keep working hard!

Those are some shots from the rehearsal 🙂

Happy Visit

As Naoki and I have both been privileged to study piano with many different teachers in our lives, we realize that not only are we learning how to play the piano, but also about how to develop relationships in a meaningful way. We often visit our teachers when we go back to our hometown or cities where we have studied. As a matter of fact, we took a short overnight trip to Victoria recently to hear one of Naoki’s teachers perform with the Victoria Symphony.

However, we have yet to experience one of our former students visiting.

Well, today we had a lovely lunch with Ashley! She is one of our special students because she had the chance to study with both of us. She took a long break while she was younger from piano and picked it up again in high school, first studying with me, then later with Naoki. She was always a motivated student and we both enjoyed teaching her. She had an avid curiosity about the mechanism of piano techniques and brimmed with questions. Even though she was kept busy in her senior year of high school, she continued taking lessons, working really hard to conquer the challenging Liszt piece, Un sospiro, for her last recital with us. We were both so proud of her and wished she could keep playing the piano, but she is currently enjoying her post secondary studies at the University of Toronto. With her willing attitude and penchant for hard work, we’re pretty sure she’ll achieve her goals, whatever they are.

Ashley and Melody

Good luck to you, Ashley! And we hope to see you again soon!

— Melody

Winter Party 2016

Our 2nd annual winter party turned out to be a remarkable event for our studio with unusual Vancouver winter weather.

Shaughnessy Heights United Church in Snow

Shaughnessy Heights United Church looked beautifully decorated by the snow. But it would have been much more enjoyable it if it wasn’t on the day of our winter party!

Room Without Everyone

We were anticipating many cancellations due to the weather, so we arranged the room with about two dozen chairs in a cozy style.

Room is getting filled

Then slowly our students and their families began arriving and made their way into the room, and this is when we realized that we were short on chairs. It was such a wonderful treat for us to see so many of our students!

FULL HOUSE

After all, we had a full house when we were started the performances, and even more people arrived later. The environment was festive and warm and made us so happy!

G in action

We wanted to take more pictures, but we ended up being too busy running around. We also didn’t want to distract the performances with too much camera noise. At least we have this picture here so that you can enjoy Gabi’s serious performing face.

And of course, an essential part of this event was the variety of food brought and shared by each family – everything was so delicious! Thank you to all our students and their families and friends for making this happen. We appreciate your support with all our hearts. It was so wonderful to see many of you there regardless of the weather. Those who couldn’t make it this time due to travel and weather, we look forward to having you in the Spring Recital!

Happy Holidays and see you all in the New Year!!

Looking back at our Spring Recital 2016

We were a little slow with updating our event news about the Spring Recital, but here are some pictures! With our studio expanding every year, each recital has been different but we think that’s part of the fun.

This year, we found another great church in our neighborhood, but we didn’t know what to expect until the day of the recital. The recital day was very sunny which caused the church to be steaming hot with no AC inside. However, the staging was so beautiful and the piano was great. We just wish we could have given a rehearsal time for students like previous years. Regardless of having no rehearsal, everyone played very well and we thank all the family members and friends who provided a supportive audience!