Concert Week

We had an amazing week of concerts. My kids did an awesome job performing and I'm so glad that they are involved in music.

Angela had her first orchestra concert this year. She is playing the violin and practiced really hard for this concert. She has wanted to play the violin for several years. She is currently playing a 1/4 size violin. It's so tiny that I have a hard time playing it. She has been fascinated with my violin over the years and is glad that she gets a violin to play at school. During the concert, the orchestra played Serenata, Puppet Parade, Marching Along, and Jingle Bells. There were a couple of songs where the also played pizzicato. It was a great concert and I enjoyed watching Angela play the violin. While I was videoing her concert, I noticed that she was chewing gum while playing. That's great!

Dani had a choir concert and I really enjoyed listening to her sing. There were 3 choirs that started the concert off by singing "Heri Za Krismas" which is a Swahili translation for"Merry Christmas on Dec. 25th Have a great holiday". Her choir sang 4 songs: "Christmas Day is On It's Way"," Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", "Here We Come A-Caroling", and "Wishbone". She was apart of a quartet that sang in the first song. She really loves choir and enjoys every part of it. After the concert, it's a tradition for those performing in the choir concert to go the Nielsen's and hang out.
Josh participated in a couple of concerts this week. His first concert was the Taylor Band Concert where he played in a clarinet chamber group. Since the group is small and has only 2 bass clarinets, I am able to hear Josh as he performs. They performed 3 songs: "O-Christmas Tree", "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and "Ring Christmas Bells". I really enjoyed "Ring Christmas Bells" and it really shows off the bass clarinets. It was a great concert!!

Josh also went to perform at some local elementary schools. The first stop on the tour was Porter and I went to watch him perform. I sat next to Angela and listen to the band perform some of the same numbers that they performed the day before. After the Taylor band performed for the school, they joined the 6th grade band and played a song written by Mr. A.. Mr. Quamo answered some questions that the kids had after the performances. I'm so glad that I went to this performance and I remembered the times that I came to Porter to watch Josh play in the band.

The final concert of the week was the Jon Schmidt concert. Jim, Josh, Ashley, and I went to see Jon Schmidt perform. Last year, I was bought tickets for Dani and I, but I was really sick and Jim took Dani to the concert. Jim and Dani talked about it for days and felt bad that I missed it. I was able to see Jon when he came to Cavalcade this year, but I wanted to hear more of his music. I'm so glad that we were able to bring Josh and Ashley this year and they really enjoyed his concert.