recital number 1

It’s finally over. I was so thrilled I half contemplated not playing piano for a week… until I remembered that I have to play for church on Sunday and have another recital on Monday to play for. Yikes.

I have to say the turnout was rather nice. I was so glad that Sloan, Liz, Kim, Heather, Emily, Brian, Gretchen, Justin, Scott, JP, Nolan, and Vanessa all came. It was pretty cool to have so many friends there, especially when most of them had never heard me play. Several of my past teachers were also able to make it, in addition to my mentor from confirmation, my youth group leader, several adults that hang out with the youth, family friends, and parents of my friends.

Now for a play-by-play of the events at hand. The Debussy just didn’t go very well. I think that by practicing earlier in the day I psyched myself out. I was worried about the only two runs in the piece going into it, and sure enough, I stumbled. Ahh well, there were some memorizational mistakes in addition to those technical fumbles, but that’s ok. It began and ended nicely. The Haydn… goodness gracious, how did I do that? The first movement started off a tad shaky, but I settled in despite the fact that my fingers were freezing and was able to pull off one heck of a speed. The breakthrough, however, came in the fact that it wasn’t out of control and fast… it wasn’t an “I’m so nervous that I’m just going to let my fingers do whatever they want and be weak” fast… it was an “I can play this hear me roar” fast. Yeah… that’s what I’m talking about.

So I survived the first movement, and between that and the next, I realized that the hard part was over and I could relax for the last two movements. The second movement was apparently awesome. This is what my teacher and her daughter said. They said it sounded mature, I was able to make the notes ring, and I successfully pulled off the pedaling perfectly. Wonderful, wonderful. The last movement went great as well. A few technical blurs, but really it was quite good. The right hand thing that kept making me tense came out somehow, and I was just pleased in general with the entire Sonata.

The Dvorak that Carrie and I played also went well. It went well as far as ensemble is concerned, although tons of notes were missed on my part. That’s ok – it was just an awesome experience to play with her, and just really neat to be able to perform that piece. It’s just so fun.

Anyway, I’m done, for the moment.