My Grade 9 Piano RCM Exam

This weekend we had a horrible ice storm but I recorded my Grade 9 Piano Royal Conservatory Examination pieces. What you can't see is that I spent lots of time shovelling the snow/ice mix outside and we have a blower drying the basement downstairs from the flooding. 

My exam was last week, on a much nicer day than what we had this weekend. 

In the exam, I made a mistake with one of my scales. I started playing the harmonic scale instead of the melodic, but I switched when I noticed. And I fumbled in one of my Etudes... I continued playing but I stopped playing the left hand for a short while while I recovered from the fumble. I hope they don't mark me down too hard for that. 

My sight reading went really well, and everything else seemed fine. 

Here are the pieces that I did:

Etudes

Restless (op. 77, no. 4) by Moritz Moszkowski

Etude in D Major (op. 45, no. 3) by Stephen Heller

Repertoire

List A (Baroque)

Prelude and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 847) by J. S. Bach

List B (Classical)

Fantasie in D Minor (K 397/385g) by W. A. Mozart

List C (Romantic)

June (Barcarole) (op. 37a, no. 6) by P. I. Tchaikovsky

List D (Modern)

Sonatina for Piano, 3rd Movement (1959) by A. Katchaturian

Christian Lane at Christ Church Deer Park

I convinced my Dad to go with me to see Christian Lane perform on Friday.  (I guess you can say it's more like I bribed my Dad with paying for the tickets and coffee.)

Christian Lane performed works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) on the magnificent tracker organ at Christ Church Deer Park including:

Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564

Partita diverse sopra "Sei gegrüßet Jesu gütig," BWV 768 

Choral

Partita I

Partita VIII

Partita IX

Partita X

Partita XI

Prelude, Trio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545/529ii

Piece d'orgue, BWV 572

Wir glauben all an einen Gott, BWV 1098

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645

Wir Christenleut, BWV 1090

In dir ist Freude, BWV 615

Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543

The last time I saw Christian Lane was 5 years ago at Roy Thomson Hall:
https://joshdlee.blogspot.ca/2012/10/christian-lanes-organ-spooktakular.html

Christian Lane is very skillful and you only have to listen to his playing to understand why he is an award winning organist. Choosing the best registrations for a piece is a part of the challenge in playing the organ.  I particularly loved his playing of Partita especially the registrations that he chose which showcased the potential of the organ. Partita has movements with different moods which have you feeling reverence, excitement, eagerness, and satisfaction. It is really indescribable and you have to hear it for yourself.

The final piece, Prelude and Fugue in A Minor was really dramatic and kept me on the edge of my seat. It was such an amazing piece!

It was totally worth it taking my Dad to see this concert!

I hope I'll be able to hear Christian Lane in concert again soon!

My Grade 8 RCM Exam

Today, I had my Royal Conservatory Piano exam.

These are the songs I did:

Etude, Op. 27, No. 24 by D. Kabalevsky 

Etude in D Minor, Op. 45, No. 15 by Stephen Heller 

Invention No 13 in A Minor by J.S. Bach BWV 784 

Sonata No 15 in C Major, 1st Movement, by W.A. Mozart K.545 

Mazurka in A Minor Opus 68 No 2 by F. Chopin 

Sonatina for Piano by A. Khatchaturian 

The exam could have been better.
I had to restart the Bach Invention and I made a couple of mistakes in the Kabalevsky Etude. The other pieces were good.

I did the sight reading was a waltz and I played it too fast, so I made a few mistakes.

The chord progressions were different from how I expected. In class, my teacher would play it once and I identify them all in one go. In this exam it is played once and then a second time, stopping at each chord so I could identify them individually.


After my exam, I went to practice some organ. This week was all about piano even though I felt a little sick on Wednesday.

Here is a short video from my practice today.
You can see me selecting the registrations and then starting the piece.

Voluntary in A Minor by Boyce

A special thank you to Elaine for allowing me to practice today.
I loved every second of it!
Thank you!

Bach's "Coffee Cantata"

Yesterday afternoon, Mom and I went to Rezonance Baroque Ensemble's performance of Bach's "Coffee Cantata".

It was like no other performance I have ever been to!

It was in a Cafe setting with an eclectic mix of chairs and a few tables. It was a lot more relaxed and light-hearted. I am used to seeing Baroque music performed in a very serious way. This time it was all about fun.

I loved it!

We started off with the Prelude from Partita for solo violin No. 6 in E-Major, BWV 1006.

Then we had the Coffee Cantata BWV 211, Schweight stille, plaudert nicht - Kaffeekantate.

And after the coffee break, the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050.

They were amazing!

I especially loved the harpsichord!
I never get to hear harpsichord solos and it was just wonderful!

Our performers were:

• Domenico Sanfilippo - Bass Baritone
• Vania Chan - Soprano
• Bud Roach - Tenor
• Andres Tucci-Clarke - Cello
• Joanna Marsden - Flute
• Rezan Onen-Lapointe - Violin
• David Podgorski - Harpsichord
• Jimin Shin - Viola
• Kailey Richards - Violin

It was so good to see Andres again.
He helps out with the TDSB Downtown Summer Strings.

And here is a picture of me with Rezan and David.

  Thank you so much Rezan for inviting me!

My Grade 7 Piano Exam

I did my RCM grade 7 piano exam this week.  I'm not very happy about it.
I'm not very confident with the Ear Training segment because they changed the format of the Four Star books.  You have to have a computer with internet access to do the Ear Training exercises at home. There is no internet or computer where my piano is.

Anyway, here are the songs that I did:

Kabaleveky - Etude, Opus 27, Number 3

Hoffmann - Elegie

Bach - Invention Number 1 in C Major

Albeniz - Sonata in D Major

Rebikov - Waltz