Samuel finished his last year of the Let’s Play Music program in May. As part of graduation, each student composes their own piano piece to play at the final recital. It was so much fun to watch Samuel come up with the theme of his song and then see the creative juices flow. He decided he wanted to compose a piece about a battle between zombies and aliens. He told me the story he had in mind and then went to work composing the music. The piece starts out with alien ships flying, aliens parachute down to the planet, giant alien walkers land and begin their march to meet the zombies, shooting commences followed by bombs and then the alien ships retreat. You can take a listen to the piece he composed himself here.
As part of the Let’s Play Music National Program, each teacher submits a couple of students pieces for the original composition competition. There were 85 entries this year and only 4 trophies were awarded. Samuel actually won the trophy for most original composition! We were all pretty excited about that!
Samuel doesn’t always love to practice the piano. In fact he does a lot of complaining when things get hard, but we have come to an understanding that all kids in this household will learn to play the piano. Samuel the other morning asked me why he had to play the piano. I told him because Heavenly Father had given him a talent and he needed to work hard to develop that talent. It about caused me to burst out laughing when he said, “Oh why did He have to give me this talent!”. Despite his occasional grumbles, his eyes sure do light up when he finally conquers a difficult musical piece.
Here is another video of Samuel at his music recital. We were sitting on the front row at the recital and I had the biggest smile watching Samuel perform. He was just cracking up the whole audience. The kid loves attention!
And I got my first taste of the thrill of performing musical duets with the kids when Samuel and I got the opportunity to play a duet titled Russian Sailor for his recital. (This was us playing the piece for my family when they were in town a few weeks ago) I’m patiently waiting for the day I can accompany one of the kids on their first concerto!
I can’t say enough about this program. It really is fabulous.
As one musical chapter closes, a new one continues with me as his piano teacher. What an adventure!
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