All year long we anticipate and prepare for this occasion. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of overkill, but the September Surprise! is definitely a highlight in our studio. Since I take off the whole month of August for brainstorming and planning our theme, selecting new repertoire, and traveling (more of that than the others this year!), I haven’t seen any of my students for over a month. The September Surprise! is my clever way of conning them into continuing to practice hard even when they’re not taking regular lessons fun way of welcoming everyone back and gearing up for an exciting new year of hard work!

We will be playing interactive games, listening to each other play their surprise selections, and, of course, announcing the theme for the year! I’m quite proud of myself for not slipping up and letting out anything about this year’s theme, so it will be a complete surprise to all the students. And tomorrow, I will let you all in on it too! If you’ve got a theme for this year, I’d love to hear about it. Maybe we can even compile a list of themes/practice incentives that teachers are doing all around the world. Wouldn’t that be fun?!