Love is the most excellent way

The Windy City String Ensemble WCSE) - the string group my children play in - is performing at Looptopia tonight. Looptopia is an annual festival in downtown Chicago with festivities all night long.
The WCSE is performing from 7:30 until 9 at the Chicago Temple. The whole ensemble plays from 7:45-8:30 with soloists performing with [...]

Breaking May (the band Ben is in) live in concert March 10, 2008. Ben is on the left playing the keyboard.

This is one of five clips of the band from that event. They wrote the three songs they played that evening.

Esther and I went to the finalists concert this afternoon. Judges were there listening and would decide which one of them would go on to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in this concert they were accompanied by a pianist).
There were five violinists, a viola player and a cellist who made it to the finals. [...]

In the afternoon we attended (most of) the violin teacher’s recital - Ben and Esther weren’t actually in this one. They’ll probably be in the May recital: Esther playing the last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Ben playing the last movement of the Tschaikowsky.
In the evening we went to the piano teacher’s recital. [...]

Ben participated in these two days ago. I thought he played the best he’d ever played his piece (the last movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto) but he didn’t make it to the finals or honorable mention list. He was presumably competing against the best 13-16 year old string players in the state - who [...]

Ben participated in the regional finals of the North Suburban Math League competition today. He tied first for individual, came first for calculator round and was second in the two person round. So he will go onto the state competition in April for individual and calculator.
Ben’s judges’ comments from the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition [...]