Concert No. 1

After a mere 2 months at Yamaha Music, Lauren had her first concert yesterday afternoon.



The kids were told to dress "fancy", so not only did we buy Lauren a new dress and shoes, but I took her to get her hair trimmed and curled at the kid's cut place where she recently attended neighbor friend Faith's glamour girl birthday party. Let me tell you, for less than $30, she got a shampoo, cut, blow dry, hairstyle, flower hair clip, and her nails painted!



She left feeling like a princess and was primed for her performance.

The concert wasn't until 3:30 p.m., but of course my parents and I arrived more than 30 minutes beforehand, in order to secure front row seats.

Lauren is in the junior music course, ages 4-6, and because they are so new, all 10 students in her class performed together.

Sitting at the keyboard, excitedly waiting to begin.



Modeling her curls for the crowd.



Her group kicked off the concert, beginning with the "Frog Song", in which they simultaneously played and sang the musical notes.


[she was the only one of the bunch who sang, atta girl!!]

After the thunderous applause, her class went up onto the stage to sing "Twinkle Twinkle". First the words with hand gestures .....


["Twinkle, twinkle little star"]


["How I wonder what you are"]

Then they sang the song again only using the notes ("Do, do, so, so, la la, so....fa fa mi mi re re do")



After their bow, the kids joined their families in the audience to watch the rest of the 1-hour concert. Lauren was mostly mesmerized (until she got tired and laid her head to rest on my lap).



Here's a video my dad took of her performance, including the kids' hysterical reaction to the dancing Santa that started off the program:



Afterwards, she posed for pics with Nana and Pop-Pop Mark.



Not to mention her teacher, Miss Grace.



Lauren had a blast and thus far, really seems to be enjoying the piano (er, keyboard for now). Without any assistance from us, for example, she is teaching herself to read music (she played "Alouette" from a piece of sheet music tonight). Miss Grace told her that at the holiday concert next year, she will have progressed enough to play a solo. Wow! One thing, though. I noticed that all of the songs for this year's concert were Christmas-themed. Just might have to shake things up a little next year - a rockin' piano version of "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel", anyone?