Holiday Soirée at last
I have some exciting news! I have finally secured a venue for a Holiday Soirée! The date is Friday December 2, and I am thinking about 5:30 – 6:30 pm for the time (I do have the venue from 4-8 pm). For new students (since I last had one of my soirees in person December 8, 2019), I had been having in person concerts which I called Soirées twice a year at Croasdaile Retirement Community, Of course this was all pre-pandemic! Over the subsequent years, my contact there, the Rev Denise Waters, retired and I felt like I did not want to use Croasdaile without Denise. During the pandemic I did have an online concert and it was fun but I do not want to do another online concert.
The venue is the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (ERUUF) sanctuary, where they have a nice grand piano and a lovely auditorium. I have played there a very long time ago. The Address for ERUUF is 4907 Garrett Rd, Durham, NC 27707. To find more about ERUUF go to their website: https://www.eruuf.org/. They are a spiritual community but basically non-denominational. Luckily, they do hire their venues out to people like me for activities such as recitals. I teach two of Bobby and Michelle Hartman’s children, Andrew and Adam, and they have helped me make contact with ERUUF.
So students, you need to be working out now what you might play. I really encourage all my students, youngest to the other end of the spectrum, to come and play and share their music with their colleagues. Playing piano can be a bit lonely and solitary, but when we get together it is so good! If you decide that you simply cannot play because you get so nervous, please, please come and meet your fellow students and listen to them play! Often after a Soirée, students will ask can they play something they heard another student play. We have a very relaxed atmosphere, and I sit with most of the younger students, and starting again is encouraged!
So please mark your calendars now for an early evening Soirée on Friday December 2, 2022. Let’s celebrate making it through the pandemic. Of course you can play with a mask if that is right for you!
October is here!
Fees for October will be due next week. Monday people, can you think about Halloween, 31 October? Another Monday!! I definitely teach that day but the students who come after 5 might want to think about costumes and trick or treating. You can of course come to music in costume. Of course I will be a witch – every year the same, sorry!
Monday people will have 5 Mondays in October except if you are not coming on Halloween. All other days of the week there will be 4 weeks in October.
The News
If you would like a different take on News… I read nicenews.com. Recently they featured an article from the Washington Post on why we like the music we do. I found the article interesting especially for older students and I mean middle school onwards.
Here is an extract:
Our cognitive styles and how we think may also predict what types of music we may like. A 2015 study by Greenberg and his colleagues distinguishes between systemizers and empathizers — people who understand the world through thoughts and emotions vs. people who are interested in rules and systems. “Empathizers tend to prefer sadness in music whereas [systemizers] prefer more intensity in music,” Greenberg said. “A lot of IT [and] data science professionals [are] high on systemizing and also prefer really intense music.”
Not sure I agree but still very interesting. I would definitely be on the empathizer end of the spectrum.
https://www.washingtonpost.
Stay warm and safe and it is so good to feel cold and wear sweaters (in Australian, jumpers)..
Lorna
