Parades, Concerts, and Recitals, oh my!

School is nearly over and we've been busy with all sorts of activities--many of them music related.  Here is a run down of our many musical events.


Parade
A couple of weeks ago Sarah marched in the local parade as part of her high school marching band. 
It was a first for the band and for Sarah.  Sarah is playing the flute in the center back of the photo below.

PianoTeams
Later that afternoon we drove up to Seattle for the three older kids PianoTeams performance. They performed in the Steinway store with students from all over the Pacific Northwest.  It was an amazing performance.  PianoTeams have five students each on their own piano playing different parts.   Five pianos all playing together have a pretty incredible sound.

Rachel's team performed "In the Hall of the Mountain King."  They wore crowns while performing to go along with the theme of the song.  They did a great job.

Rachel and two of her friends from her piano team

Sarah's team performed "Flight of the Bumblebee."  It went super fast and was awesome!

Sarah and her piano team

Ben's team performed a very cool rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." 

Ben and his piano team

Sarah wearing her very cool bumblebee hat for Flight of the Bumblebee

Ben getting ready to perform with his team.

It was very hard to take photos and video the performance at the same time.  Actually, I didn't do a very good job of either.  I eventually had Ben help me.  Here is a video of Sarah's performance, recorded by Ben.

Choir
A few days later was Rachel's choir concert.  She is in the back row.  The choir sang all sorts of fun music. 

Rachel and her friend also performed a duet at the concert, both playing the piano and singing the song, "Homeward Bound."  I had to hold back the tears as I listened to them perform--it took a lot of guts for both of these girls to get up there.   And they did such a great job!  They had been practicing for weeks at our house.

She also performed as a part of quartet that included lots of cool body percussion.  Go Rachel!

Band
The next week was Sarah's band concert.  Sarah has had such a great year in band.  She has a good teacher and has learned a lot.  She auditioned for the wind symphony (the more advanced band) and just learned that she got in. 

Violin
Rachel had her violin concert a few weeks ago. 

Next time I'm going to make sure Rachel wears her hair up for the concert so we can actually see her face while she plays.

This has been a good year for Rachel in violin.  I feel like we've turned a corner and it is actually enjoyable to listen to.  So happy about that...