The Lyrical One

  “Music is an essential part of everything we do. Like puppetry, music has an abstract quality which speaks to a worldwide audience in a wonderful way that nourishes the soul.”- Jim Henson

On Monday in Guelph there was Kiwanis. 

Kiwanis is a world wide organization, and every year in April, they sponsor programs that enrich the lives of children. In Canada every April, musical children gather to perform for a Kiwanis adjudicator who observes the child's work. After the performance, the adjudicator tells the child how wonderful the performance was, things the child can practice and continue to work on, and the child is given a certificate to keep. 

The Lyrical One, pictured above, gave two performances for Kiwanis. I love to watch her perform, so I went to Guelph on Sunday and stayed over to make sure I wouldn't miss either one. The Lyrical One has been playing with the Suzuki Violin School since she was four years old. Now that she is ten, there is more complexity to the pieces she performs. She also needs to demonstrate that her skill and finesse playing the violin is developing as it should.  

Watching her performances over the years, I have learned much about playing the violin myself. I love the way The Lyrical One walks onto the stage, does her introductions and ever so smartly dances her bow over the strings with wonderful confidence! She plays in an orchestra, a chamber group and she also does solo performances. During Kiwanis, no one is allowed to tape the performances or take any pictures. The picture above was taken during an earlier Suzuki recital. I used this picture because Kiwanis happened in the same place with the same piano accompanist. 

For the morning solo performance, The Lyrical One played the Gavotte by Martini. It is the violin piece from You Tube I have included below. You will have to just imagine she is the one playing in the piece. For the afternoon performance, she played a duet for violin and cello. The two short selections were Chamber Music by Handel entitled Bourree and Minuet. Each performance was about five minutes in length. It was a long space of time for a ten year old to keep her concentration, especially during the afternoon performance. That was when she played her duet and so she had her partner's concentration to consider too.  

I have to say as an unbiased Grandma, that for both performances The Lyrical One (whom I love to bits),  played her violin brilliantly! I was very impressed with her ability to play the notes, keep her timing, use dynamics, learned techniques and also to follow her cues. 

BRAVO!!!

The Lyrical One has aliases. She is also known as Natasha Serenity and apparently, 

Little Miss Chatterbox. 

As you are enjoying the Gavotte by Martini, it might occur to you that this post reminds you of something you might experience at the Smiling Heart, my friend Jo's blog. Jo is often writing about her daughter, the Graceful One, who performs ballet brilliantly. I modeled my blog today after Jo's because it is a blog about performance and Jo is very skilled at putting together performance oriented blogs. You can visit her blog here. 

The Gavotte, in this clip is high spirited like a spring walk on a cool, crisp, sunny afternoon. Enjoy.