L's music festival

L participated in a music festival this last weekend.  She has been playing since January of last year, so her class were all entered as “level 0”, (first competition/1 year of lessons).  She entered in 5 categories and has been practicing every day.  Unfortunately last week she became very sick with strep throat and a virus.  She spent all of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday as a big sad puddle on the couch.  By Wednesday I bribed her to practice again but she really hasn’t had energy to do much.  She had missed school, dance and even piano lesson where she could have had some last minute fine tuning with her teacher.  Friday afternoon, I picked her up from school and she was immediately grouchy, not the best start.  But we arrived at the festival, got her dressed up and found her duet partner for a quick practice.  Her first of five pieces was scheduled as the third song of the festival.  The hard part of this was that we didn’t know what to expect and even the judges and coordinators were still getting organized.  So it was a little rough and may have frazzled her nerves.  Her first piece was her duet, “Family Dream”, by Neil Moore.  The girls were silly and distracted so not particularly professional as they waited their turn but finally got to sit down to play and preformed well.  They did have one mistake which L quickly directly the correction so it was a smooth recovery.  After that she thanked her friend and waited for her second entry.  We found her piano teacher minutes before and that was a huge help.  I think it helped her settle down, plus her second piece was to play an accompaniment and I was losing my voice (having caught the same virus).  So her teacher readily agreed to be the singer and L did wonderfully playing “Amazing Grace”.

After we left the festival, L admitted she hadn’t been able to each much at lunch and she was near tears again as she still didn’t feel good.  (which explains why she was so grumpy!)  So we got some dinner and then spent the evening at a dance performance (she had fun with her dance friends but I’m sure it just wore her out further).

Saturday morning she got to sleep in while husband and I went on a date (so grateful for my mom who was there to support her at the festival and didn’t mind babysitting too!)  By noon we were at the festival again and had a much better experience.  Instead of bringing the kids in one at a time, they were assigned to groups and were able to be an audience for each other.  I think this really helped them stay professional rather than get silly or nervous as they killed time in the hallway.  Plus it was much more of an engaging, musical experience.  She played “Ode to Joy” as her classical selection (flawlessly!), “Night Storm” as her contemporary piece and got to save her favorite for last: “Alma Mater Blues”, her jazz piece.  She played wonderfully and I was so proud.

After the festival we drove down to the Salt Lake Temple and spent an hour taking pictures of her for baptism announcements.  She looked like a beautiful princess and was so happy.  She loved seeing all the brides and got many compliments and congratulations.  Despite the cold and some wind, we got some great pictures and I think she had a lot of fun.

From there, we went to a nail salon.  L had set a goal of practicing piano 30 days straight as well as breaking the habit of biting her nails.  Having been successful in both endeavors, her reward was a professional manicure.  She was pretty excited and I could hear her giggling through it.  In the end, it wasn’t quite what she wanted but decided she liked the flower embellishments on her sparkly red nails anyway.  (meanwhile I now have pretty sparkly blue toes in honor of the boy to arrive soon)

The plan at this point was a quick dinner and then back to the festival for the awards ceremony.  But L was fading fast, burned out from a busy day and probably still a little sick.  The day had been fun but demanding of her.  We got some soup for dinner and headed home for a movie and a cuddle.  She missed the festival awards ceremony but even just trying to convince her to put her dress clothes back on made her cry in frustration and fatigue.  I talked to her teacher and she understood, offering to pick up her awards for her.  It would have been fun, and she loved attending the kick off concert on Thursday but she was so tired she would have been miserable sitting through the “best of” performances (which I knew she wasn’t eligible for anyway).  Her teacher texted me later that night with a congratulations for her, she earned “superior” in all five categories!