SCV Branch

From Recital host, Madeline Miller

The Fall Branch Recitals went very well! There were 55 students participating in 2 recitals. Twelve teachers participated; Mindy Cabral, Susan Carpenter, Elena Chao, Lauren Companeitz, Bill Foley, Wendy Hershey, Manyoung Hwang, Hyunjoo Kang, Lisa Kim, Madeline Miller, Teresa Wang, and Jiyoung Wheeler.

Teachers helped and that was wonderful. It seemed like all families were pleased and that is the important thing. I absolutely love the white curtain behind the piano. It makes the stage and our piano look really beautiful.

Bravo to all the performers!

THANK YOU to JOHN FAIRBANKS for hosting the Theme Festival!!

All three recitals were a great success and it was so fun to see all the costumes! Thank you to all the participating teachers, and to MSSL for helping to put goodie bags together, carving pumpkins, and helping to decorate! It was a BIG help!

Please see the Theme Festival Report from John Fairbanks:

Hi Teachers,
The Theme Festival this weekend was a huge success. We had 73 students and 15 teachers participate. Thank you to all the teachers who helped out on saturday. Everyone looked great in their costumes and it was a very entertaining afternoon of scary music.

Thanks to the teachers who were there in person to help:
Mindy Cabral
Susan Beaty
Virginia Feitelson
Susan Carpenter
Judy Kang
Madeline Miller
Teresa Wang
Joni Frey
Bill Foley
Elena Chao

Also thanks to Renee Choi, Rosy Sackstein and Jiyoung Wheeler who could only be there in spirit (or ghost)  Your students all did very well.

A special thanks to Roxanne at LSM (works at the front desk) for being extremely helpful and doing so much for our organization that she really doesn’t have any obligations to. If you see her be sure to thank her… and of course Mindy for the venue and all her help. Having the piano at LSM made everything so much easier and made my job very easy! They were great in dealing with “emergencies” and great at coming up with all the little things I forgot…little lights, extra programs, safety pins, tape, clip board, extension chords, etc…they really helped out!

If anyone has pictures to send me or Mindy for the website I think we would all love to see the costumes.

John Fairbanks

The Improvisation theme for 2013-2014 is “Holidays.” Log in to the teacher pages on the MTAC website and click on Improvisation>Documents where you will find sample assignments listed by year.
“Holidays” is at the top of the list labeled as the 2014 Theme.
Click on “Holidays” to open sample assignments for each month of the year. Several well-known and many not-so-well-known holidays are listed for each month. You can assign a particular holiday to your student or let each choose a holiday of their choice as the inspiration for their weekly or monthly Improvisation.
You may print the entire year’s Holiday assignments. Copy any or all of the pages for your students. You might put a studio copy in a binder for your students to begin looking at to choose a special holiday from each month’s list — a good activity if they arrive a little early for their lesson! If they find an unusual Holiday of interest to them, suggest that they do some research to find out the background of the holiday.
Students enjoy doing artwork to illustrate their Holiday — you might display their artwork in your studio each month, and then make a booklet of each student’s work to present to them at the end-of-year studio recital.
Include all the favorite Holiday Improvisations in your Recital. Students love to play their “own” music!
The deadline to submit recorded Improvisations for Evaluation is March 15, 2014. Students may opt for evaluation ONLY, or they may wish to also be considered for Convention performance.
Students may submit any Improvisation of their choice for the evaluation. Complete instructions for the Improvisation evaluation application and Convention performance are listed on the website.
Start now planning your Improvisation year!
Deborah Sanfilippo, State Chair Dorothy Burgess, State Assistant Chair Improvisation

Email Improvisation Branch Chair, Alyse Korn alysekorn@sbcglobal.net with questions.

Alyse Korn, September 2013 Improvisation Branch Chair Report

This year’s Improvisation Theme is Holidays. The Monthly Holiday Theme worksheets are available for download from the www.mtac.org website. Teachers must log in with their user name and password to access the pages.

If your students would like to participate in the annual Improvisation Celebration evaluations, please download the information that is also available on the Improvisation teacher pages. Students who participate in the evaluations and receive high scores are invited to perform at the MTAC annual state convention.

Students may also perform their improvisation for Certificate of Merit. Please check the Certificate of Merit Procedures which are available on the www.mtac.org Improvisation page.

The postmark deadline for the 2013 Improvisation Evaluation is March 15, 2013!

I’ve already handed out the September Improvisation assignments in my teaching studio and many of my students are enjoying creating short pieces about their summer vacation experiences! My students perform their improvisations for each other in our monthly performance & theory group classes.

Two MTAC resource handbooks for teachers are the Improvisation Syllabus and Games and Activities by Marilyn Carstens. They are available for purchase at the www.mtac.org web-store. The link is on the Improvisation page.

I also recommend Forrest Kinney’s Pattern Play series which Mindy stocks in the LSM music store.

Please feel free to contact me at alysekorn@sbcglobal.net if you have further questions.

Happy Improvising!
Alyse Korn
SCVB MTAC, Improvisation Chair

John Fairbanks, Recital Host

Theme Festival Flyer 2013 PDF

Branch Recital Entry Form