Salerno Strings Recital

This evening 30 out of 75 students performed in my annual Salerno Strings Recital. The remaining 45 students are either located in Kona, are adults too scared to perform in my recital, or are on spring vacation! I am so proud of my students. There was not one single shaky nervous hand twinkling the ivories tonight! Everyone did such a beautiful job and the smile that filled their faces after accomplishing such a task was priceless.

This year I rented a church for my recital and it turned out to be the greatest idea ever. Because:

1. I didn't have to clean my house...Messy Jessie's House that is!

2. The church has plenty of folding chairs and pews.

3. The church has a piano.

4. The church also has a kitchen for dessert and juice after the recital.

All in all it turned out to be such a wonderful evening of music. I came home and Alex met me in the driveway and said "Go take a look down the private road". And there were my two little escape goats! They don't like anybody but me (they won't go near Alex!) So I got out of my car and just calmly walked down the road towards their pen, goats in tow. I've totally mastered this goat herding thing (No thanks to my herding dog Moki!!) If I'm just super calm and cool acting like nothing is wrong, they will follow me wherever I go. So I walked back into their pen, goats a follow, and noticed that part of the pen had collapsed (hence the e-scape goat adventure). I fixed the fence. Went back home, and now we are off to dinner to celebrate a wonderful day. I feel so unbelievably blessed to have the most amazing students and families in my life.

I saw a student posted a youtube video of her 1st grade daughters performance. You'll notice I'm squatting to play the duet part. I would have blocked all my students from the audience had I sat on a chair. Click HERE to watch a clip from the recital.

Appalachian Spring and Overture to Marriage of Figaro

This past weekend was the 2009-2010 season finale for Kamuela Philharmonic. In the videos I am the third stand first violinist at the very end. We performed Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, a Mozart violin concerto, and Mozart's Marriage of Figaro Overture.

A little music history for my blog:

Aaron Copland was born November 14, 1900 and lived to December 2, 1990 in Brooklyn NY. Several members of my orchestra actually had the opportunity to play under his conduction when he went on tour around the country working with different orchestras during the last decade of his life. He was an American Nationalist composer, with pieces that truly evoked the vast American landscape. He also incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms and polychords in most of his work. I would consider Copland's music to be much more percussive than melodic. His other most famous pieces I have performed in the past are Rodeo and Billy the Kid.

Irish Step Dancing

Tonight my friend Fabie and I watched a few Youtube videos on Irish step dancing. We mastered these steps within a few minutes! We feasted on Cornbeef and cabbage and listened to Irish pub songs on pandora.com. Note to self...don't dance too much after such a big Irish feast!

Alex in Waterworld screen shots

Here is Alex on the raft. There is another scene in the extended version that shows his whole body.
OhmygodOhmygodOhmygod it's a chest shot of the dreamy Alex Woodbury!!!!!
Here he is walking directly in front of Kevin Costner


Last night we couldn't decide what movie to watch so I suggested we take screen shots of him starring in Waterworld. There are other battle scenes where you can see Alex but they move so quickly it's hard to catch it in a screen shot.

I told Alex I remembered seeing this movie in the theaters when it first came out. I said "Little did I know back then at age 15 that one day I would grow up and marry the boy who walked in front of Kevin Costner in Waterworld!"

Virtual Piano Lessons

Well shoot folks, I don't think I can top last weekends post! Life is sort of boring right now. Nothing hilarious!

But tonight I embarked on a new directional branch of my career. CYBER lessons! That's right folks, I am now officially a virtual piano teacher. Available to my abroad students via ichat or skype. I did a test run with one of my middle school students tonight who is moving to Washington in May, to a small island without a piano teacher. So instead of her coming over for a lesson tonight, we skyped it. When her face popped up on my computer screen, I wanted to ham it up and say in a computery futuristic voice "Greetings. And welcome to your virtual piano lesson. I will be your cyber teacher, Jelexica, coming to you live from my pod on planet Jupiter". Jelexica was the only space age-y version of my name I could make up.

In other news,

There was a plague upon the Woodbury dwelling for over a week. We are both on the mend now. Spring break is here so I have 2 weeks off of school but will continue with private lessons.

And finally, we discovered a very funny song this week regarding the tsunami that never took place. Click HERE to hear some good island humor.

America's Funniest Home Videos

Oh our sweet patient dog Moki (Sometimes nicknamed Saint Moki)

I submitted both videos to America's Funniest Home Videos today. I'll keep you posted if they are accepted! Moki may just have to go to Hollywood after all these years of shenanigans!

BONE Appetit

BONEjo Music

The Shamrockers

Getting Jiggy with it. We jigged for 6 hours that day!
I sort of look like a weird leprechaun in this picture. I usually have a toothy grin, not a grimace!
Tom is from Limerick, Ireland and he played the penny whistle and Bones and Spoons for us!
Join Jessica Salerno-Woodbury, Tom Quinlan and Susan Sanderson for an Irish Ceilidh. We will be exploring the rich musical heritage of Ireland with reels, jigs, slow aires, Irish ballads and pub songs, poetry, and a good bit of blarney, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. All acoustic instruments are welcome, but no prior instrumental experience is required.

I had a great Ceilidh (Irish for "party") with Parker School students today as part of Art Start. Art start was an all day program put on by Parker School where various artists in our community donated a day of "art" with the students. There was acting, commercial making, poetry, and other artistic activities. We played Irish tunes, sang pub songs and ballads (I brought mugs and Rootbeer which was a hit!), danced, and learned to play spoons. Denis Fitzgerald told stories about growing up in Ireland. At the end of the day the students all had to do a performance, and ours wanted to perform "Rocky Road to Dublin" on stage, but power went out and they couldn't see the lyrics. So they sang "Moonshiner" acapella to tremendous applause. Awesome kids! I dubbed them "The Shamrockers"!