Crazy Month #2 - Eisteddfod 2014

As crazy as February was, March was crazier!  It was our family's second experience with the Eisteddfod Music Festival that I wrote about last year. This three week long festival was a time consuming and yet wonderful experience.  The first week, Arianna had students who particpated (and did quite well, I might add):

The second week, the HIS orchestra particpated and got an Honors (the highest distinction) AND got to share the cup for the best orchestra:

The third week, both Abigail AND the girls' string quartet - Sixteen Strings - received Honors. As a result, Sixteen Strings was invited to play in the final concert - which is a showcase concert featuring a sampling of the best of the 2,000 entries.  To top it off, Abigail received the Di Wright Cup for the best string player under 16.

Sixteen Strings out celebrating after their Honors performance!

That's all for now - hope to catch up with some more updates of this past month before April is over...

Couple of Crazy Months - February

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind since my last post.  February was spent getting ready for a major musical event in early March:

It was a great opportunity to get back into recital playing, but since I hadn't learned a new sonata in over 20 years it seemed like perhaps I should have started with a more modest goal of performing a piece I already knew (our pianist and I both learned the Prokofiev Cello Sonata).  Of course, Abigail also learned a new piece so I had a double role as performer and as coach.  Fortunately, we had some wonderful people to work with and the concert was well attended.  I'm hoping we get to do some more concerts here in Harare but I'm not sure when that will happen!