May Madness!

The end of school craziness has begun.


On Thursday, Roderic performed with the First and Second grades in their annual Spring Concert. The theme this year was patriotic. Roderic got to learn "You're A Grand Old Flag", "America the Beautiful", "My Country Tis of Thee", "The Star-Spangled Banner", and "Yankee Doodle". The kids did a great job.

On Friday morning, Sabrina played cello in the orchestra and then sang in the choir during the Orchestra Band Choir concert. During lunch, she played violin and cello with a couple of ensembles for the volunteer luncheon.


On Friday night, Sabrina played violin with EHO in the Boise Music Week School Night Gala. (No pictures, but you'll have to take my word that the music was awesome!)


On Saturday afternoon both Roderic and Sabrina played in the Boise Bench Studio's violin recital. Roderic played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star variation B and Boil 'Em Cabbage. Sabrina played the duet part for most of the students throughout the recital and played Gavotte in D major by J.S. Bach as a solo.



Here is Roderic playing his solo. Sabrina's solo didn't get recorded due to operator error.

Violin Camp, day 5

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. This stage is full of cellos. They call it a cello band. I'm putting a video of them playing Eleanor Rigby for you, Noelle (since you're the first person I saw play the Beatles on a cello).

Orchestra recap: On the first day of orchestra, the conductor split the violins into boys and girls. Boys sat to the conductor's right and girls sat to the conductor's left. Then she assigned the 2 violas and 3 cellos to sit in the middle. Sabrina got to challenge herself and learn the 2nd Violin part. The concert they gave today sounded really nice. They played Tropical Serenade, Rock Candy and Adios Amigos. I'll put Tropical Serenade on the blog at a later time.

After eating lunch, we went to the musical theatre class performance. They performed 3 songs from Suessical. Sabrina and I would now like to see the whole thing.

Sabrina with her Scandinavian Fiddling Instructor, Goran Berg. He's about to sign her Fiddle book!

Sabrina with her Master Class teacher, Pat D'Ercole from Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Violin Camp, day 4

The highlight from today was Sabrina performing with the 60 other students in the Scandinavian Fiddling classes. This song is called Zorro's Mark. It has been fun to go to a class each day where the teacher doesn't speak English as his first language. He gets to the same meaning, but uses different words to get there. During class, after playing each song, he asks if anyone made a mistake. When hands are raised, he cheers them on saying how wonderful it is that they made mistakes. True fiddlers make mistakes and call them improvisation.

Sabrina said that her favorite class is Theory. She loves the games that she is learning to play. I really should purchase the Music Mind Games and play them with her. Perhaps I'll even offer to teach music theory to my friends' children.

As part of the fiddling concert, we heard the Aaron Ashton Band. One of the band members played "Amazing Grace" on the dobro, which is a souped up guitar (it has a cone on the inside and a 'hubcap' on the outside).

Violin Camp, day 3

Would you just look at that hand position! That is what she's been working on in her master class this week. Beautiful!

Sabrina says her favorite part of the day was when she got to play Suspense! in her Theory class. It looks like fun to me too.

My favorite part of the day was when we played "Tackle Twinkle" in her Repetoire class. The parents were involved in pushing their chlid to see if they had a good playing position with their feet. She did fine when she had warning, but I got her during her Technique class when she least expected it.

The following song has been in my head ever since Monday when Goran Berg taught it to the Scandinavian Fiddling class. It's called "Beware of the Girls."

Yesterday, Shanda took her children and my boys to Ogden to see a Disney train tour promoting an upcoming movie. My boys have yet to stop talking about their awesome time there (2.5 hour wait). Shanda has pictures posted here.

Violin Camp, day 2

The traffic to drive to and from Draper has not been bad so far. In fact, this morning we left the Ludlow's at 7:35 am and arrived at the school at 8:25. Tomorrow we'll leave even later. The first class is at 9 am.

The first class of the day was Repetoire. Mr. Hutchins from Maryland is letting everyone in the class take turns being the leader of their master class song, going in order of birthdays. The first student is played a song that Sabrina hasn't learned yet. Instead of being asked to sit down and listen he had her (and everyone else who hadn't learned it) to play the first part and the last part because it's the same as in another song she does know.

Next up was Technique. Mr. Van Reeth from Ohio involved the students right at tuning by having them play a rhythm and then he asked them what song they know how to play has that rhythm. Sabrina gave the correct answer, "Theme from Witches Dance" by Paganini. He gave them homework of learning the composers names of several songs they played. And he told them a cool story about a bowline fish under the dock, dangling feet into the water almost being tickled by the fish, a baby cousin who came along with two bumps and another cousin who is scared of putting their feet into the water. The kids made some great bowholds after that.

I have been working on binding a quilt for my mom during the classes. When I first had the idea to work on it this week, I thought it would take me quite some time. But, I guess since it is a lap quilt (and I sew fast?) it didn't take me long. I finished the last stitches during her Master class. [My mom bought the quilt at a scout auction. The top was pieced and the batting and backing were attached with pins. When we were down over Memorial Day weekend, she gave me the quilt and asked me to finish it. I quilted it using Angie's awesome quilting sewing machine last Thursday and then made a bias binding on Saturday.]

The Student Honor Recital today featured Rocky Mountain Strings, a group of 34 violinists. They played 4 pieces, each one directed by a different violinist from the group. Millionaire Hoedown is a crowd pleaser, especially when there are actions involoved.

Violin Camp, day 1

Sabrina is attending ISSI this week in Draper, UT while Roderic and Hyrum are playing with cousins (the Ludlow's today and tomorrow -- THANKS SHANDA!!!!!) It is going to be a week of fun and learning (for her and me). This afternoon she started the classes: Orchestra, Theory, Scandinavian Fiddling, and Master Lesson. Tomorrow morning she adds Repetoire and Technique.

Tonight we were favored with a concert by Jenny Oaks Baker. This is just a little clip of "Souvenir d'Amerique" by Henri Vieuxtemps. Wow.

You are invited to attend the Fiddling concert on Thursday evening at 5 pm and/or the final group concert (there is nothing like hearing 300 children playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in unison) on Saturday morning at 11 am.