Suzuki Talent Education Program
of St. John's, Newfoundland
STEP Wise February 2011
In This Issue
- Our New Format
- Winter Term Group Classes
- February 13 Solo Recital
- Welcome, New Families!
- Volunteers Needed
- Master Class With James Ehnes
- Kudos Corner
- Parents as Partners Online
- Thank You, Danna
- Atlantic Canada Suzuki Instite
- Looking for Sponsors for our Suzuki Summer Camp
- ACSI Countdown: 100 Day Practice Challenge!
- STEP Fiddlers Online Support
- Did You Know?
- Starting Your Classical Music Collection
Our New Format
With this issue of the
newsletter we're trying something new. As you can see, it's going
out as an e-mail (and a web page) rather than as an attached
file. We hope that by displaying it this way we make it quicker
and easier to get a handle on all the contents of the newsletter,
without having to download a PDF. It has also been formatted to
fit well on the screens of the many smartphones in our
ranks.
Thanks to our resident technical guru and tireless parent volunteer, Heather Patey, for turning a morass of code into an easy-to-update newsletter.
Please send us any feedback on the format -- whether it works for you, any changes you might like to see -- to step@suzukinl.ca.
Winter Term Group Classes
The remaining group classes of the Winter term will be happening on February 5th and 19th, March 12th and 26th, April 9th and 16th, May 7th, May 14th, and May 28th. As always, you can check the schedule online.
February 13 Solo Recital
Don't forget, the next Solo Recital is February 13th at St. Mark's Church at 233 Logy Bay Road. To play, speak to your teacher.
Welcome, New Families!
It's not very often that our private teachers have vacancies in the middle of the year, but that was the case this year, so in December we sent out the call for new Pre-Twinkle students and Early Childhood Music Education attendees. There was an open house in the first Pre-Twinkle and ECE classes of the year, followed by an info session and questions-and-answers by teachers and volunteer parents. There was a good turnout for the open house, and we're glad to have five new Pre-twinklers: Jessica, Lilly, Madeline, Maggie, and Rachel. Parent Training sessions were held to introduce their families to the Suzuki Method and to STEP, and by now they're well on their way.
A new "Rhythms and Bows" class, taught by Lauren, was started to accommodate younger pre-twinklers who have not yet progressed to playing on instruments; they're having lots of fun clapping and singing and making bow-bunnies with wooden dowels for bows. New to our Early Childhood Music Education Program are enough babies and toddlers for a third class: Evelyn has a full day on Group Class Saturdays with three classes of Early Childhood, plus the Book 4/5's just for a break! It's lovely to see all these little ones absorbing the beautiful music that will make Suzuki Method study come naturally to them as they grow. Welcome, new members: we wish you many happy years in the Suzuki Talent Education Program. You'll be playing the Bach Double before you know it.
We are so happy you have joined us! Ask any friendly face for assistance, we will be delighted to help make you feel at home. Everyone please give our new friends your biggest Suzuki smiles when you see them on Saturdays!
Heather Patey, STEP Parent Volunteer & Christina Smith, Artistic Director
Volunteers Needed
STEP has a library of books and music in our office in the Arts & Culture Centre that doesn't get a great deal of use. As part of our effort to share those resources better, they will soon be getting comprehensively catalogued so that a list can be posted online. Once it is, we need one parent to volunteer to collect the "orders" for books and music each week before group class. They can then go with Josh to the office on Saturday morning and get the books to pass out to parents while they're passing through for group class. Materials borrowed this way can then be returned at the next group class day. The library volunteer would need to keep track (spreadsheets will be provided!) of what is on loan and to whom. Drop a line to step@suzukinl.ca if you can volunteer; we'd like to get this started soon.
Josh Smyth, Administrative Manager
Master Class With James Ehnes
Suzuki students and teachers are welcome to observe a master class by world renown violinist James Ehnes with Memorial University School of Music students. The class will be held on Thursday, February 10th at D.F. Cook Hall between 1-3 pm
Nancy Dahn, MUN Faculty of Music
Kudos Corner
Aine Waterhouse has
nearly finished Gossec Gavotte- soon to be a Book 1
graduate!
Serena Piercey is closing
in on the end of Book 2 and sounding great- good progress,
Serena!
Sophie Shoemaker and
Olivia Cook have both learned their fingers for Twinkle and have
done it with very good poise and balance!
Adele Forward's vibrato
has improved tremendously since she's learned about arm movement
that is independent of spinal movement. Her arms are balanced now
and so much freer! Hard work, but it's paid off! Well done,
Adele!
Clara Steeves is sounding great on Czardas. Looking forward to hearing her perform it on the next solo concert!
Jennifer Johnson
Please write in with notes of appreciation for March's issue of STEP Wise! You can write in if your child/student has worked hard to keep his violin up, or bow straight, or tall cello back. You can write in to thank Mom or Dad for bringing you to a concert, or you can write in to thank a STEP volunteer for their contribution.
Christina Smith, Artistic Director
Parents as Partners Online
STEP families should all be signed up now for the Suzuki Association of the Americas "Parents as Partners Online." If you haven't yet created an account you'll want to do that very soon, to take advantage of the inspiring videos. Many students are now trying the "Listen Like a Maniac" technique, and seeing positive results already! Other wonderful and practical videos include "Practice Pointers", "Are We Having Fun Yet?" (Great ideas about enjoyable practice and non-verbal communication!) and especially "It's OK to struggle together."
Christina Smith, Artistic Director
Thank You, Danna
Danna Hunter, who has been teaching Pre-Twinkle and Musicianship 1 classes, has had to withdraw because of the pressures of her nursing course. Thanks, Danna, for all your wonderful work with our kids, and we know all your patients will enjoy your warm smile and gentle humour as much as we have. Best of luck, and be sure to come back and visit! Lauren Smee has taken the helm of Danna's pre-twinkle class, and Heather Kao will be instructing Musicianship One.
Christina Smith, Artistic Director
Atlantic Canada Suzuki Institute (Camp)
The Atlantic Canada Suzuki Institute - which is often just called "camp" in the STEP community - is coming up! The institute will be held at beautiful St. Bonaventure's College here in St. John's, during the first week of summer vacation (June 27th-July 1st). There will be a full week of both group classes and individual lessons for all levels (including ECE classes for toddlers!), plus many more fun musical activities, to be attended by parents and children together. Teachers and students will be coming from as far away as London, England to join in. Registration will begin around Easter time.
Heather Patey, Parent Volunteer & Josh Smyth, Administrative Manager
Looking for Sponsors for our Suzuki Summer Camp
Would your company or organization like to sponsor a class at the only Atlantic Canadian Suzuki Summer Institute? You could have a poster or standing sign displayed outside the door of the class you sponsored visible for all participants to see, be mentioned each day at our daily concerts, be recognized in material for helping support the camp and have some material be part of our registration package, as well as some advertising in our newsletter. STEP is a charitable not-for-profit organization so we can offer you a tax receipt for your sponsorship. Email us if you're interested, or if you know an organization who might be.
Alistair Bath, Chair, STEP Board
ACSI Countdown: 100 Day Practice Challenge!
March 18 marks 100 days before the Institute (Camp!) starts. Any student who practices for all 100 days will receive special recognition at the Institute. A special chart to keep track of practice days will be available from your Studio Teacher, your Group Teacher, or on the STEP Website - http://suzukinl.ca
Christina Smith, Artistic Director
STEP Fiddlers Online Support
Last fall, in preparation for the CD release of Fiddling In The Fog, a new webpage for the STEP Fiddlers was created, with information about the group, promotion for the CD, sample tracks, photos and video. Since then, a reference page for the Fiddlers themselves has been added, with full class notes taken at rehearsals; hints and reminders about playing the tunes, with corrections or changes; and useful articles and links. Members can download anything they need from a full collection of sheet music and recordings of the current repertoire. Fiddlers, come visit and take advantage of what's available to improve your learning and playing together!
Heather Patey, Parent Volunteer
Did You Know?
Like most Canadian Suzuki programs, STEP is a charity. We have a charitable number and can issue tax receipts for charitable donations to our program. So, if you are in the enviable position needing a tax write-off (or know someone else who is) - think of us! If you work for a company that sponsors arts or educational projects in St. John's, please let us know! step@suzuknl.ca
Christina Smith, Artistic Director
Starting Your Classical Music Collection
Being a non-musical parent of a young Suzuki
student has its rewards and its challenges. Sometimes the reward
and the challenge is exactly the same thing! One challenge for a
family that doesn't regularly listen to classical music is
figuring out, among the vast wealth of wonderful music that our
culture has inherited, just what to listen to. It is also hugely
rewarding to discover together what remarkable beauty the great
composers have created that waits for us to listen. A shared love
of music brings families closer even after children are grown and
gone.
If you have favourite
recordings that your family enjoys, please drop a note to
step@suzukinl.ca with the
title, composer and performer, and a sentence or two about it -
what it's like (exciting, dreamy, rollicking, stirring!) or why
your family enjoys it. We'll put it in the newsletter so others
can enjoy it.
Our first musical memory comes from Lauren Smee, one of our teachers:
"There are a lot of
pieces of music that are special to me, but one that stands out
is Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach. Before I was born my
parents made a "sleeping tape," which played nearly every night
as I feel asleep for the first ten years of my life. Sheep May
Safely Graze was the first piece on the tape. There are many
versions of this piece out there, and the one my parents chose
was an arrangement for woodwinds from a record they both
particularly liked. Now, the record has long since been lost, the
tape is pretty garbled, and I have no idea who arranged or played
that particular recording. But regardless of the instrumentation,
I always feel a sense of calm and comfort come over me whenever I
hear that music."
In the meanwhile, here
are a few blockbuster favourites just to get you started. And
while you're out shopping for wonderful music - pick up the next
Suzuki CD too!
- Johann Sebastian Bach - Brandenburg Concertos
- Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons
- Sergei Prokofiev - Peter and the Wolf
- Pyotr Illyitch Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, the Nutcracker, Symphony #5.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto # 21, all the Violin Concertos, Midsummer Night's Dream, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Symphony #40.
Christina Smith, Artistic Director &
Lauren Smee, Teacher