Is everyone else in the midst of Christmas music and preparations for Christmas recitals? Somehow it snuck up on me this year, so I didn’t get the recital selections to all my students until last week. Gulp! I hope they are motivated to work really hard between now and the recital to get them learned well! My process for selecting Christmas recital music is about the same as what I outlined in this post.
I start off by taking requests from students for a piece that they would like to play for the recital. And this is basically first-come-first-served because I only allow one rendition of each carol/song. No, all 30 of you cannot play Carol of the Bells! 🙂 Then I spend hours and hours pouring through the books I have on hand and sitting at the music store trying to find just the right arrangement for each student. I want them to love their piece and to sound beautiful when they play it!
Once all the pieces have been selected and assigned, I incorporate them into our theme for the recital and write the narration or other elements that will be included along with the performances. This year’s theme is Jesus: God of the Galaxy! (This is in keeping with our Exploring A Galaxy of Music theme for the studio this year.) We’ll have our recital on December 17th, with a mandatory rehearsal the week prior. This Name that Christmas Tune game that Wendy posted looks fun! I think I’m going to use it at the rehearsal as a fun game in between our two run-throughs of the program.
I love doing our annual Christmas recital! It’s become a favorite tradition among my students and their families, and I’ve found that the students play so much better since I’ve started holding regular group classes throughout the year that give them the opportunity to develop their performance skills on a regular basis. I’d love to hear what others are doing recital-wise. Are you doing a Christmas recital? Do you have a theme? Favorite pieces? Traditions?
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