Monday, July 28, 2008

Recital on Steroids

Last week our family drove to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend our church denomination's international conference.

Earlier in the summer, I had asked the children if they would be interested in performing at the conference, and they said yes. I submitted audition videos for each, and they were scheduled to perform in the "Entertainment Night".

About a month before the conference, Evan sliced his left pointer finger rather severely. I thought he was making a sandwich in the kitchen, but no, he had decided to cut a large jicama and the knife slipped. (I now agree with Logan's opinion of jicama recorded in the sidebar.) After an E.R. trip and stitches, Evan practiced piano with only his right hand during twelve days until he could get the stitches out. Thankfully, his shortest piano piece was requested which he knew quite well and could quickly get up to speed.

When we arrived at the conference and I saw the size of the crowd in the auditorium (1,600 people), I wondered if we had made a good decision.

Picture by Drew Gordon
However, the children remained unflinching in their desire to perform and when the time came, they played well.

As a child, I remember sitting at a piano, ready to play in a small recital, but losing my nerve to play and walking away. How humiliating!

Sophie did have a hiccup in her playing at the beginning of her piece, but she looked over at her brothers and continued on beautifully! I'm glad that she had the experience of not letting a mistake affect her nerves and the rest of the performance.

I fought with my camera to record the kids' playing in the low lighting and unfortunately did not catch the very beginning of Sophie's piece, but here is the video:


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books


Ten other "acts" performed in the program, including this wonderful bagpipe player:

Photo by Drew Gordon


8 comments:

Jackie said...

fantastic job! what brave children you have! i am super-duper impressed especially after seeing the size of that audience!

Good job guys!

H said...

I went to the RP photo slideshow and saw a couple of Copelands, at least one McFarland, and a Parnell! It was fun to see familiar faces. It was sort of like a five-point "Where's Waldo?" (Okay, not really, but I tried to tie in the Calvanism thing somehow...)

The playing was beautiful! Great job!

Nikki said...

What a great job they did!!! Good thing they don't get nervous very easily.

Anonymous said...

They did a great job!!

You were almost within spitting distance of me! LOL! We live south of Lansing/Jackson. It woulda been neat to meat. :o)

Kathy Stegall said...

I was there! It really was wonderful.

Erin said...

Wow, they are all really brave and did a great job!

Mama Peep said...

BRAVO!!!! BRAVO!!!! BRAVO!!!!!! BRAVO!!!! ENCORE!!!! ENCORE!!!!


Patricia

I'll just play that again! :-)

DH said...

Wow! That was very impressive. Please pass along my commendations to your kids. Lovely music, beautifully rendered.