1st Piano Recital

Elina had her first piano recital today. It was a Christmas recital held by 2 of our neighborhood piano teachers. Twelve students played one Christmas piece each. Elina's piece was "Holly Jolly Christmas." She had been practicing her piece for a month now and knew it really well. Since she is so young, the teacher (K) played it with her as a duet. It sounded wonderful! And because Elina was the youngest student, she got to play first.


To the right is a picture of Elina with her piano teacher. And below is a picture of Elina right after she finished her piece and after she got her certificate.Another piano teacher (EC) came to the recital just to see Elina play. EC is good friends with our neighbor, so we were interested in asking her to take Elina on as a student. But it turned out that she only takes kids who are 5 years old and up. K was also hesitant to take Elina on as a student, but decided to give it a try. After a few lessons, K told EC that Elina can read notes, count beats, and play really well, so EC wanted to see for herself. EC got to the recital a little late, so she missed Elina's initial performance. So at the end, she asked Elina to play for her. EC said Elina has a natural talent because of the way she can read the notes and play staccato already. We are so proud of our little Elina! She has a great attitude about practicing and she actually loves to practice. Sometimes she'll start practicing on her own to work on some fingering or she'll put on an impromptu performance for us. We're just thankful that she's so interested and so excited about the piano.

This was really Elina's special day. She wore a cute top with a black tutu with her silver, sparkly shoes. We gave her flowers after the recital. Then we took her out to lunch at her favorite place, The Olive Garden (like father, like daughter). Then we had special cupcakes at home and she got to use our family "special day" plate. She was in heaven and really enjoyed her special day. We thought it worked out perfectly that her special day fell on the day before Eli's birthday....that way she wouldn't feel like she didn't get anything on Eli's special day.

Here are the kids giving the usual Asian hand gesture...although Eli's is only halfway there.

So the actual recital footage is on our camcorder, but here is her "dress rehearsal" with her piano teacher the day before.