Love is the most excellent way

The Windy City String Ensemble’s year end concert was on Friday and the piano recital was yesterday. They both went very well. Steve recorded the piano recital but his recordings aren’t up yet.
Here are a few camera videos. Sorry the piano recital ones are so dark - I should have set the camera ASA [...]

Ben and Esther’s end of year school orchestra concerts were both this week.
Esther is concertmaster of the 7th and 8th grade string orchestra at her school. Ben is concertmaster of the “freshman plus anyone who didn’t make the Symphony Orchestra” string orchestra at his (a huge group this year - they have about 80 [...]

Ben and Esther had Piano Guild on Monday. They both played well and were happy with how it went. It sounded good from outside the door. This was my first year to go inside the room (because I was accompanying Esther on the Raccoon Rag duet).
Ben will get a plaque because he’s just completed ten [...]

The violin recital went very well today. As well as Ben and Esther playing their own pieces, Ben was asked yesterday if he’d accompany a student playing the first movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto. Their teacher was supposed to accompany her but he’s been having back trouble so he asked Ben to step [...]

Here are camera video recordings of Ben playing the last movement of the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, Esther playing the last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto and the Windy City String Ensemble (WCSE) playing the last movement of the Holberg Suite by Grieg.
In the WCSE recording Ben is at the front playing the solo that [...]

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 [...]