On June 10, 2018, the East Cobb Young Musicians performed at Arbor Terrace Senior Center. In an ONE hour performance, the team had a trumpet solo, a clarinet solo, piano, and violin solo with well-known classical and modern music.
For the opening scene, our youngest member, Selina Huang, played a Sonatina by Clementi. After hours and hours practice, she was much more relaxed, and the audience enjoyed the music with her. Asad Yamin played a violin solo, he was deeply troubled by the fact that his duet partner was not present, but finally, he managed to get out there by himself. Maxwell’s piano playing is pretty good, his lively music would stir such strong emotions in others than ever before with an improved pedaling skill and a metronome. Susanna Huang was absolutely the famous star at the performance, she first played a violin solo, Amazing Grace by John Newton. Before the performance, a lady walked up to our young musicians and told us that she had a music-loving dog named Willy. While Susanna was telling the audience about John Newton, the lady whispered into Willy’s floppy ears what she had just said about the composer. The show of compassion made her chuckle, Willy absolutely loved music.
The second part started with a wind instrument; Jay was on his trumpet including My Country Tis of Thee. Next, Michael was up with his violin solo, and he performed You Raise Me Up and another piece. After Michael played beautifully with all that spirit and might, Katherine was up. For one of her two pieces, she played The Entertainer. For the other, which always would bring back cheerful memories, she played the main theme of the Super Mario Bros game. It was very cheerful and light-hearted. At the end of her pieces, Raymond went to the audience and played his extremely long piece that was called Love’s Sorrow. It was intriguing. After Raymond’s dramatic exit, Susanna came back to the audience and introduced herself again, this time, as a pianist. She told them about her songs, from the composer to the publishing date to the characteristics of the piece. The audience seemed to be engaged enough. The final one she played was an impressionistic piece by Debussy called Reflections in the Water. For that piece, her favorite part was the end where everything goes from raging to calm and quiet. Her performance was amazing, for she fully showed the story to the audience.
The performance was great, and most importantly, everyone was happy! We successfully let the audience enjoy the feeling of the music with us. At the very end, the senior residents would came and questioned us: Who we were, what we represented, would we visit often, etc. They cared about us as much as we cared about them. This compassion from them stirred up a sense of pride and responsibility in me. Afterwards, they would complement us on how lovely our performance was. Later that day, Susanna Huang shared her feelings with other young musicians, saying “Before, I thought that creating music on an instrument would simply be for the entertainment of oneself or for the preparation of an upcoming competition. After playing for the seniors though, I observed that playing music brought them an abundance of joy to their tender hearts. The music helped soothe their bored minds and also brought back the wonderful memories of the past. Seeing them happy made me feel twice as happy because I know I helped make their day that much brighter.”
Attendance: Maxwell Jiang (Piano), Jay Pan (Trumpet), Katherine Sha (Clarinet), Michael Fu (Violin), Raymond Jiang (Violin), Selina Huang (Piano), Susanna Huang (Piano/Violin), Asad Yamin (Violin).
Reported by Susanna Huang
