Photoshoot!

Hello everyone!

Yesterday, those of us in Boston (and still in school) had the day off thanks to the Boston Marathon!! Maybe someday, I will go to the race, but that would only be to cheer on people I know because I probably will never run it myself  haha.

Since I couldn't get to school because the marathon route divided my side of the city from school's side, I decided to thoroughly enjoy the day off and do something Z and I have been meaning to do for awhile: taking head shots.  We have been discussing it for months now, but we never could find the time to do so until today.  It was a gorgeous day for photos, even if a bit windy, and we had so much fun exploring the park near my house!

Here are some photos of me taken by Z  =)

Masterclass with Boston String Academy

Hello everyone!

Last week, I had a chance to visit the Boston String Academy and work with a few of the students there in a masterclass setting!

It's an incredible program that gives inner-city students the opportunity to come in every school day before school begins for quality orchestra rehearsals and private lessons.  It's run by two passionate violinists, Marielisa and Mariesther, who went through the prestigious Venezuelan 'El Sistema' program, and I was so impressed with not only the level at which the students played, but also with how well-behaved all of the students were the whole time I was giving the class!  It was extra impressive because the class was at 8 am!

As I've mentioned in the last post, teaching is one of the most rewarding experiences for me, and it was so fun to get to teach in this public environment.  Giving a masterclass is very different than teaching in a normal lesson environment because you only have a short amount of time with each of the students, and also because you are teaching not only the student who is playing, but also everyone who is watching the masterclass.  

When you teach, you usually have so many things that you want to address, but I think it's important to pick out just a few things to discuss per lesson so that the student is not overwhelmed with information.  In a masterclass setting, you have even less time than in lessons, so it was a fun challenge for me to think about what I could say in the time that I had with each of the students that could make the most amount of difference in their playing.

It was so much fun working with these students, and I am so thankful to Dani from Boston Philarmonic's outreach program 'Crescendo' for inviting me out there!  (She is also the amazing photographer who took all of these photos!)

Thanks again to the Boston String Academy and Crescendo for having me, and I hope be able to collaborate and and teach more masterclasses in the future!

Have a wonderful week, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Our First Little Recital!

Hello everyone!

Last weekend, I had such a proud mama moment!  My Boston students had their first recital, and my goodness! cue all the emotions.

I never imagined that I would love teaching so much, but during the past six years or so, teaching has grown into one of my biggest passions.  I love everything about it; getting to know the students and the parents, figuring out different ways to approach different subjects for each student, working out how to solve road blocks in their learning process, and seeing them grow both artistically and personally.  It's truly one of the most rewarding experiences.

I feel so lucky to have so many wonderful students (and their parents!) here in Boston, and together with MaeLynn's studio, we had an exciting recital day full of fun music and wonderful companionship!

We were also lucky to have such a sensitive pianist, Daniel, who was there to play with our students! It's not easy following the students' interpretations sometimes (which can be rather surprising at times), but he did amazingly!  =)

All of our students played so beautifully! We had a variety of range in levels, and they all did their best, and we were so proud!!

We were also joined by a wonderful singer, who is one of my students' sister, and it was so fun to have variety during the recital!

We ended the recital with a little Bach Double action!

With all of the students and teachers!

haha this photo really captures the experience -- sweet, funny, a little distracted..  and never a boring moment!

Everyone brought refreshments to share afterwards, and we had a wonderful time chatting and getting to know all of the friends and family!

I feel so blessed to have such talented and wonderful students. Every single one of them has such good hearts that even when they don't practice sometimes (ahem..), I look forward to every lesson with them  =)

I'm so excited that for the first time in my  life, I am planning on being in one place for more than a few years!  I'm excited to hopefully work with all of these students long term and to see all of them grow!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Photo Cred: my wonderful fiancee -David  =)

Chamber Music Institute!

Hello everyone!

I didn't mean to be MIA for the past week and a half or so, but when you are at Chamber Music Institute rehearsing, attending concerts, and having business meetings from 8 A.M. to 11 P.M., the last thing you think about doing when you get home is sitting down to write a blog post.  Mostly, we came back, got ready for bed, and passed out.  I'll have to pick back up and document our Korea and Taiwan trip soon...

Anyway, Chamber Music Institute was a truly amazing experience though, and our trio grew so much during that short amount of time. If you want to hear a little more about it, we'll blog about it soon over on our trio blog, but let's just say that in a nutshell, there was a lot of dancing,

pizzicato blisters...

a few little 2 minute breaks in the sun,

and some shenanigans, of course.

In our free time (before and after the festival), we also got to hang out with our amazing friends, so that was pretty awesome too.

  =)

Oh, I also got to reconnect with my former teachers as well.  One, because she was coaching us at CMI,

and another when we found him on the wall at the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra office  =p

Oh man, oh man.  I look back now (even though I came back last night) and I can't believe everything that happened!  I absolutely loved getting to know and hanging out with everyone there, and I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with so many amazing folks  =)

 

I'm so excited to be back home for a week or so, relax a bit before embarking on a 5 week performing/tour with the Meadowlark Piano Trio, and get caught up on blog posts!  Get ready for a floooood of posts coming your way  ;)  

Thanks for stopping by, and happy weekend!!

--Janny 

Birthday Surprise for Mr. Lin!

Hello everyone,

Today is Mr. Lin's birthday!!!  Last year, we planned a pretty elaborate surprise for him (elaborate because there were more people in the studio and required more coordinating), and I think we about gave him a heart attack!  We didn't get to do the whole shebang of decorating the door and inside of his studio this time around (but there are still some decorations left over from last year that he keeps around year around haha), but we did get most of our studio together and surprise him when he got to school  =)  

He was definitely surprised, hopefully pleasantly so, and this is what we had waiting for him!

It was a baseball themed 'party' this year because he's always talking about baseball during our lessons, so we assumed he really enjoys it  ;)  haha  we had a baseball card, a baseball cupcake, a pencil sharpener that says 'Mr. Lin's' written on it, and a jar of pencils that has 'Stolen from Cho Liang Lin' engraved on them.  

It was really fun to get the whole studio together to surprise him on his birthday, and though he says he's not going to schedule lessons on his birthday from now on, we think he enjoyed it  ;)

Happy Birthday Mr. Lin!  

Thank you so much for always pushing us to be our best, and expecting us to do what we at first think to be impossible.  It's been tough at times trying to live up to his expectations, and also trying learn to have the same kind of expectations for myself, but I really feel like I've grown a lot during these two-ish years  =)

If you see him today, please wish him the happiest of birthdays!

--Janny

Stuffed Turkey Weekend

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

We ate, then ate some more, then,,, ate again!  haha.  It was a wonderful weekend full of good food and amazing company.

On Thanksgiving day, we joined a huge group of friends for an incredible dinner at Miran's apartment (she has a really cute blog too! you guys should all go check it out!)  We know how much work it takes to host a Thanksgiving dinner because we hosted one last year, and they really did an amazing job. It was soo good!! and there was so much food!  I don't actually have a lot of pictures from it because,,, I got distracted by the food.  I mean, seriously, the food.   They even had homemade ice cream.   Need I say more?  haha

The company was really awesome as well.  I don't have pictures, like I said, but Satoko and I did end up snapping this photo together  =)   Something was really funny at the time, obviously  haha  We've been playing together for the past year (she's an amazing pianist!) and I feel so blessed to have gotten to know her and have had the chance to play with her!

Sadly, I don't have pictures with the hosts, or with anyone else at the party... le sigh...  but I'm sure some photos will be going up on Miran's blog soon  =)

some Thanksgiving selfies with my guy.  on the way to his lab.  because he had to work on Thanksgiving.. such a hard worker that one! 

We didn't participate in Black Friday madness..  actually, I have never participated in Black Friday madness..  I know, what girl hasn't participated in it at least once, right?  but yup, every year, it rolls around, and I just don't feel like going shopping!  Don't get me wrong, I love shopping as much as the next girl when I have something I want to buy, but it seems the need/want to go shopping never lines up with Black Friday.. Perhaps next year?  haha

Anyway, after spending a productive Friday at home, David and I hosted a Ballroom movie night on Saturday!   we basically ate a lot of food and watched a lot of Youtube videos (4 hours of it to be exact), laughed until our abs hurt (who said ballroom dancers don't have humor?), and just really enjoyed being in one another's company!

some snacks.  gotta make up the calories lost while laughing.  and the watermelon is there because we felt like we had to have 1 healthy snack,, being dancers and all...  haha  There was a lot more food later (like pies, cakes, awesome smoked salmon appetizer, etc, but again, once the party started rolling, I forgot about my camera until the very end when we took the group photo above...)

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and I feel so blessed beyond words to be able to enjoy amazing foods (so thankful for food  haha) with the incredible people in my life  =)

Oh, and are you guys participating in the December Photo Project/Challenge?  There are multiple ones floating around, but the gist of it is that you take a photo every day for December.  I think it would be a good way to document the important/mundane aspects of my life in December, and see if I can stick with it for a whole month.  I probably will forget a day or two here and there, but I'm going to try!
Here is the first photo of the month  =)

My 5 year old student wrote this for me on the board on Sunday.   it melted my heart.  seriously.  loving the backwards 'y', the sweetness of the gesture, and the time I get to spend with such a spunky, energetic, but overall extremely sweet little human being.  =)

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and thanks for stopping by!!

--Janny