"When the words stop, the music begins".
Every summer, it’s that time of year again: the next student concert is coming up! Once a year, our piano school hosts a concert where our students can show their family and friends what they’ve learned over the past year. But how exactly does it work? And why do we do this, anyway?
Of course, participation in our student concerts is not mandatory. However, most students are very eager to take advantage of this opportunity. What makes our student concerts so appealing? It’s simple: a concert is a wonderful experience that you can work toward all year long.
Of course, this always comes with a little stage fright—but you’ll be rewarded with the audience’s applause! In addition, participating in the student concert offers a unique opportunity to showcase your newly acquired skills on a professional concert grand piano—getting to play on one is a dream for many young piano enthusiasts.
From experience, we can say that most of our students, regardless of age group, handle their first performance brilliantly—and go home with newfound self-confidence and the feeling that they’ve learned and demonstrated something wonderful!
In addition, the prospect of the annual student concert gives piano lessons a sense of purpose that is perhaps less common in private lessons. Preparing for the concert ensures that playing the piano doesn’t become “l’art pour l’art,” where it doesn’t matter whether you make progress or not—there is a concrete goal that you can look forward to working toward.
Normally, our students take part in their first student concert after one year of lessons. This decision is made in consultation with the piano teacher. Of course, everyone is free to choose not to participate or to wait a year or two before performing in their first student concert. Specifically, preparation involves selecting a piece for the concert that matches the student’s skill level and suits their style. This piece is rehearsed in lessons well in advance—so that it’s performed flawlessly on the big day.
Every year, all participants receive a certificate of participation as a memento of this special day.
Whenever possible, we also have the concerts recorded. Each student then has the opportunity to watch and save the entire concert—and, of course, their own performance—as a video.
A video like this is a wonderful memento of a very special day when you got to show the people closest to you everything you’ve learned in piano lessons over the past year. At the same time, it’s also a great record of your progress. Anyone who looks back at the various student recitals will quickly realize: “Wow, I’ve really learned a lot!” This, too, can serve as a source of motivation time and again later on to continue taking piano lessons with dedication.
From our perspective, all of this is reason enough to invest a lot of time and care into preparing the student concert every year—because it brings us great joy to see how much dedication and love for music our students bring to it!
