In preparation for their first piano recital, Miss Jenny started Samantha and Amelia practicing their two songs in December for their February recital. We were getting pretty sick of hearing Indian Song, Skip to My Lou, Alouette, and When the Saints by the time their recital rolled around!
The recital at the recital hall was planned for a Sunday, but since that interfered with our church start time, I told her we’d be happy to host a recital at our house on a Saturday. There were several families who couldn’t do the Sunday recital either, so we planned the recital with Miss Jenny and the families, with about fifteen people planning on attending to perform and watch. I had planned to borrow chairs from my friend, Phi, whose son, Parker also took lessons from Miss Jenny and was doing the recital hall recital, and Miss Jenny asked everyone to bring some food to our house for after the recital. Things were all set, until two days before the recital, Miss Jenny told me two of the families were sick and didn’t think they would make it, and she was sick as well! The other families didn’t mind postponing, but after hearing the girls practice the same songs for two months, I didn’t think I could listen for another week!
After telling Phi what happened, she generously offered to have a little mini recital at her house the next day since her in-laws were not able to make Parker’s recital a few weeks prior. She put it together totally on the fly and we were so grateful! She had originally planned on hosting us for dinner as well, but Meredith and Eleanor both had colds, so we decided to just come over for the recital while Jake watched the two sick girls at home, and came over at the very end so he could switch me places. It was so nice of Phi and family to host a little recital so the twins could at least play for someone! After all their hard work and talk of the recital, I really wanted them to have a chance to play for an audience other than our family. They were so excited to go to Parker’s house and it was a treat to hear Parker too, who is so talented!
I put together a little “program” and Parker was the MC for the night– such a natural!
It was fun for the girls to see how good they could be if they keep practicing– Parker is amazing!
We had practiced going up to the piano, sitting down correctly and getting hands in position for literally MONTHS, but both girls were on a silly streak and did not do anything we had practiced! Maybe they felt too comfortable being at Parker’s house! I had to bite my tongue at their posture!
The girls had been playing their songs perfectly by memory for weeks at this point, but I think having an audience threw them off just enough to forget what they were doing! It required a lot of me silently repeating to myself, “They are five. They are five. They are five”! They still tried their best and it was the perfect first introduction to performing for an audience for these shy and silly girls!
Amelia was very brave with her poor casted arm.
Jake arrived at the end to come in and say hi, leaving poor sickling Meredith and Eleanor in the car. Meredith was SO upset to not be able to come in and play with Maple, but Phi had a little “treasure box” that she let everyone pick something out of and Maple sweetly picked out a toy for her. We were so grateful to the Nguyen family for hosting the twins’ first recital! It turned out to be so much more fun with friends.
Lots of love,
