A Smiley Day

From Blogger Pictures

A long day today, but full of youngsters and lively banter! Of course my, oldsters are always full of life too!
Monday really is a day of the 'after school club'. The get off the school bus, or are dropped by car, and suddenly my kitchen is like a Paradise High School classroom - lots of homework going on and the custard creams committing suicide in the face of such a mammoth onslaught.

I began with L, and was so excited to be able to play with new repertoire, thus getting her as excited as I am, and feel the musical temperature rise as we gather a programme together! I have given her, Mad Bess by Purcell, the 'other' Sextus aria, 'Parto Parto', which I sang to distraction in my youth, and won many prizes with I have to add! Then we moved on to my favourite Vaughan Williams song 'The New Ghost', which is so full of shimmering poetry and long wandering melody lines. After that I gave her the shock of her small life and said she could tackle 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' by Schubert, and she almost fainted with joy! Another early Italian aria, 'Pieta Signore' and we were almost done.

One happy young lady!

My younger set were almost as happy, and there was a good spirit in the room. My newly returned teenager has turned a real corner, and is now talking about taking her singing further, which I think may be a possibility, but given she is only 14 this week, we may have to raincheck in a year or so! The babies of the day, H and K were great. K full of laughter (?! NB Granny!) and a new Liza Jane song made her smile and comment, 'I like Liza Jane songs ' she said with an odd mixture of gravitas and twinkle, and young H sang his entire Grade 1 programme without a mistake, beautifully in tune, and more importantly, without jiggling around!

After I finished teaching, L set too and photocopied the entire programme to take back to University, but fear not, she will purchase her own copies, so no copyright breaching here! She could not resist sitting at the piano and positively 'marinading' herself in Gretchen, a song she has nagged me about for the last year!

She will set off tomorrow for her journey home around the same time as all the others will be setting off for school or work, and another day begins.