January Performance Classes
Happy New Year!
Our next performance classes will be on Sunday, January, 15, 2012. The performance orders have been posted and may be downloaded from the Calendar page. Please check carefully on the performance order sheets to see which class your child will be performing with.
The classes will be held at Schmitt Music at the Galleria in Edina. The start times for the classes are posted below:
- Young Performers/ Junior Young Artists @ 12pm
- Young Artist Class 1 @ 1pm
- Young Artist Class 2 @ 3pm
December Performance Classes
Our next performance classes will be on Sunday, December 4, 2011. The performance orders have been posted and may be downloaded from the Calendar page. Please check carefully on the performance order sheets to see which class your child will be performing with.
The classes will be held at St. Paul Conservatory of Music in downtown St. Paul. The start times for the classes are posted below:
- Young Performers/ Junior Young Artists @ 2:30pm
- Young Artist Class 1 @ 3:45pm
- Young Artist Class 2 @ 5:15pm
October Performance Classes and Fall Festival Recitals
Happy October! Below please find pertinent information regarding our October performance classes and recitals.
There will NOT be a formal recital this quarter for the Young Performers and Junior Young Artists classes (hooray for jeans and gym shoes!). The performance orders for the classes and recitals are also available for download from the Calendar page. Please carefully check the performance order sheets to see with which class and time your child will be performing.
October 16, 2011 :: Performance Class for Young Artists Only – Schmitt Music in Edina
- Class 1 – 11am
- Class 2 – 1pm
- Class 3 – 3pm
October 23, 2011 :: PC and Recital – St. Paul Conservatory of Music
- Performance Class – Young Performers/Junior Young Artists – 1pm
- Recital – Young Artist 1 – 2:15pm
- Recital – Young Artist 2 – 4:00pm
- Recital – Young Artist 3 – 5:45pm
We also want to mention that all of our students and parents are always invited to sit in at any of our performance classes and recitals to hear other students from different classes play. We especially encourage our Young Performers and Junior Young Artists (and parents) to attend our Young Artists recitals and performance classes. It is quite inspirational for our younger students to see the level of playing they may aspire to by listening to our Young Artists perform.
St. Paul Conservatory of Music – New Location
One more reminder that the St. Paul Conservatory of Music have moved across the street from their old location. They are now in the East Exchange Building (across from McNally Smith College) at 26 East Exchange St., Suite 500, St. Paul, MN.
St. Paul Conservatory of Music – New Location
Performance Class – September 25, 2011
Welcome back! We are excited to kick off this new year of wonderful music with our first quarter performance classes. We will have three classes on Sunday, September 25th. The performance orders have been posted and may be downloaded from the Calendar page. Please check carefully on the performance order sheets to see which class your child will be performing with.
The classes will be held at Schmitt Music at the Galleria in Edina. The start times for the September 25th classes are posted below:
- Young Performers/ Junior Young Artists @ 11:00am
- Young Artist Class 1 @ 12:15pm
- Young Artist Class 2 @ 2:15pm
CHS Students Bring Home a Truckload of Awards from our Young Artist World Piano Festival!
Jo Anne and I have been on oxygen for three full days now, following our greatest Festival yet! We are now off the oxygen and have recovered enough to resume our Summer Term. We only averaged about four hours of sleep a night over the ten-day festival, but were fueled by this electrifying and intoxicating event!! It was an unforgettable experience!
All told, Jo Anne and I (with the incredible help and support of our parents) brought nineteen of our musical souls from our studio, out of a total enrollment of sixty-two festival attendees. This is a record attendance for our studio, and we brought home a record twenty-two awards. All of the awards were won during two full days of auditions at the beginning of the Festival.
Kenny Broberg celebrated his final Festival having attended seven consecutive years. And celebrate he did! Kenny was chosen for the Senior Honors Recital, once again, performing Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata. It is considered by most musicians to be the greatest sonata of the twentieth century by an American composer. One of the most difficult and complex works in the piano literature, Kenny learned this nineteen minute, four movement work, from scratch, in just six weeks! Yes, an amazing feat, but it was the astounding performance of the work that was most mind-blowing. It was the unanimous opinion of our artist-faculty that this was the greatest performance of this work any of us had ever heard – live or recorded – by any artist known to us. Kenny was also selected for the Alessio Bax Master Class, as well as a private special lesson with Pavlina Dokovska. Kenny will be leaving us in the fall as this is the end of his formal study with me. He will be attending the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, having received a “full ride” of a full tuition scholarship, room and board. He will be studying with the internationally respected teacher, Nancy Weems. A personal friend of Jo Anne’s and mine, I have every confidence that she is the one to guide Kenny at this stage of his development. Kenny will be joining another virtuosic student of mine, Josh Tan, also a full scholarship student at UH, who will be in his third year in the fall. Although Kenny is leaving our studio, he and I will always be joined at the heart, mind, and soul. He is my musical heir. He carries my musical DNA. Kenny came to me as a young gifted boy of the age of ten, and is leaving as a fully formed artist of the first rank. Over these past eight years, we have shared a magical journey together. We have shed much blood, sweat, and tears, in the service of our art. We have also experienced exaltation, and the deepest joy and satisfaction one can imagine. One cannot know joy without pain. A relationship such as we have is incredibly rare and one of the greatest one can have on this planet.
Austin Frohmader and Lucas Jones also had an extraordinary Festival. Both young men (along with Kenny) were chosen for the Senior Honors Recital. Kenny, Austin, and Lucas were three of the seven students selected for this prestigious event. Austin and Lucas were also selected (along with Kenny) to perform in the Master Class of our world-renowned Guest Artist, Italian pianist, Alessio Bax. Our three young men constituted the entire Master Class. They were the only students out of the entire Festival selected for this world-class event. Our entire artist-faculty was unanimous in assessing that this was one of the greatest Master Classes any of us had ever witnessed, and was the main reason Bax was asked to return next year. This return engagement is a first for our Festival in its twenty-one year history. Austin also won the right to perform in our other International Guest Artist Master Class with Pavlina Dokovska of the Mannes School in New York City. Austin was also chosen for a Dokovska private lesson, and was a finalist in the Senior Concerto Competition. Lucas was Chosen for the Paul Wirth Master Class as well as a special private lesson with Dokovska.
Nita Qiu, Noah Qiu, Daniel Qu, Matthew Qu, and Michael Tang were all selected for the Junior Honors Recital, and were five of the eight performers presented. Nita was also chosen for the Paul Wirth Master Class. Michael was also selected for a Dokovska special lesson as well as being named a finalist in the Junior Concerto Competition.
Stephanie Ye was honored with a performance in the Wirth Master Class. Along with Nita and Lucas, these three young stars of ours made up the full roster of the Master Class.
Christina Waldron was selected for the Herbert Johnson Master Class. Richard Chang, Lawrence Chen, Niels Wu, Mulan Zhu, Mandy Chang, Noah Chojnacki Stephanie Li, Karena Lin, and Anna Waldron all had a wonderful Festival and played gorgeously in the Final Recitals.
Last, but not least, our beloved Lillie Gardner, gave a sumptuous and scintillating performance of Chopin’s magnificent Barcarolle in the Festival’s Alumni Recital. Lillie will begin her fourth year at New York University’s Steinhardt School for the Performing Arts Professions in Manhattan. Having taught Lillie since the tender age of nine, she still coaches with me in the summers and whenever she is home on break. She has been a valued assistant to me with a number of my young students. As you can see from this report, we had unprecedented success at our incredible Festival. Jo Anne and I look forward with great anticipation to the new season. Our studio is the strongest – across the board – it has ever been!!
Yours in Music – Joe & Jo Anne
