A week before Christmas, we attended our 10th (we think!) “Noel! Noel” Christmas concert by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Choir with guest soloists, in the beautiful St Patricks Catholic Cathedral in Parramatta. Every concert covers at least 400 years of Christmas music, diverse and often obscure, but always concluding with “Silent Night” in multiple languages followed by a rousing “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Every year, this concert recharges the batteries dulled by Christmas commercialism with the joy of music superbly performed on Baroque period instruments and expertly curated by Paul Dyer and the company. Highly recommended - for us, an annual must see.
Congratulattions to all my students who completed Piano Comprehensive or Piano for Leisure exams recently. Your results were an accurate assessment of your achievements this year, congratulations and I’m very proud of all of you!!!
Mark attended the MTA conference, “Music Teachers Matter” at Western Sydney University, last month. There were some great sessions, including working with neurodivergent students (Mark has experience in this, and is keen to further apply what he learned at the conference!), some cutting edge research on performance anxiety, and working with diverse learners. This was an excellent supplement to the biennial Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference (APPC), at which Mark is a regular! Consistent and ongoing professional development is a valuable asset for any teacher, but is particularly relevant to private music teachers where the peer interaction is always worthwhile.
