I am very happy that I have a ton of students to write about! In the last two months, I had lots of book completions and student performances. 

 On February 1, Kai Uehara finished the ABC's of Violin Book 2! He will reappear in this blog entry, but here is to his first one. Congrats! 

 Shortly after that, on February 5, ​Hisui Miyazaki finished Leopold Auer's Graded Course of Violin Studies book 1. Congrats! I'm really happy that she moved back to the area and resumed lessons with me -- she had great teachers while she lived out of town and I'm super grateful for them. 

 As I had advertised here, my high school senior student, Jovita Li, performed at Hilltop Music Collective concert on February 25. She plays both violin and viola, and we played Mozart's Duo for Violin and Viola, and Piper's Minute Tangos. It's my absolute pleasure to perform with my own students! Jovita is super reliable and I had nothing to worry about while performing. It was a really nice "gift" for senior students, and I'm grateful for HMC to feature my student. 

 Now, going back to more book completions, Liana Elliot finished two books on February 28! Suzuki Violin School Book 2 and ABC's of Violin Book 2 are done now, and she has been working on both books' volume 3 and an additional piece for her student recital performance. I can't wait to work further on her recital piece. Keep up your great work! 

  On March 7, Kendrick Fu, finished Suzuki Violin School Book 2 as well! Congrats, Kendrick! Keep working hard! In the middle of working on Book 2, he tackled a challenging duet based on his favorite Star Wars music. He never gave up on it, and successfully played it through with me this winter. I'm proud of you!  

 Congratulations to Ian Shum who made his Carnegie Hall debut on March 9! He had performed there with his orchestra before but this was another huge moment! Auditioned through Elite International Music Competition, he performed Carl Bohm's Sarabande in G minor. Ian worked really hard for it and made a big improvement on his playing. 

  And congratulations to Alexandra Wynne on her amazing Vivaldi concerto performance with the Stamford Symphony on March 19! Great job to the wonderful violin trio, they sounded well together and blended. It's been a busy year for her but she has been working really hard and making huge progress. I'm so glad I got to hear this performance! 

 And here is Kai Uehara again, who finished Suzuki Violin Book 2 on March 25, and performed Beethoven's Minuet in G from the book and 3 nursery songs beautifully at my Petite Concert on March 26. This was his second time performing at Petite Concert, and he had a big role in inspiring the next generation of music! Congratulations on many achievements, Kai! 

 So those are my February and March. We are starting to prepare for a student recital on June 8. It's open to public and I'm excited to have everyone perform! 

 I'm very happy that I have several students to feature! 

 Congratulations, Piet Hopmann, on your completion of the ABC's for Violins Book 4! He had successfully mastered the second position, and has been working on the fourth position. Big leap from last year! Keep up your good work, Piet! 

 And here is Emma Cheuk who finished her first ABC's Book! As she started very young, this book must have seemed like the Everest for her but she did it! Congratulations, Emma! She is onto Book 2. Keep up your good work, too! 

 And congratulations to Santiago Ovalle, on your Petite Concert debut on January 29!  He performed in front of a huge audience of 100 or more. They just loved his performance, and I am so proud of him! He played Allegro by Suzuki, and Ode to Joy by Beethoven. 

 Congratulations to all my students who have been selected to perform in the Greenwich Public Schools String Festival this week! I hope you all are having the greatest time rehearsing with other talented string players! 

 Last but not least, on February 25, my senior student, Jovita Li, will be performing at the Hilltop Music Collective Student Showcase. Please stay tuned for more info! 

 Should have announced here besides Facebook fan page and Twitter, but I have a concert tonight in Greenwich, CT. If you are in the area, please stop by! There will be a wine tasting reception. 

 I will be playing Dvorak's Romance, something I have always wanted to play but never had had a chance to fit into a program (it's 12-13 minutes long). This time, it's a joint concert with multiple musicians and I was asked to play something under 15 minutes, so this is a perfect opportunity! 

 Thank you, colored sticky notes, for making my practicing organized... 

 It's color coded... I assign each color on a category of needed improvements.
Pink for fingering/bowing changes (more like reminders), purple for left hand, green for bow techniques, orange for musical ideas, and there's more colors. 

 Anyways, I'm very excited to perform "Romance" tonight! This is the first time I will perform a soo piece by Dvorak :) 

 Happy New Year! Wishing you all a wonderful year. 

 It's been a very busy season and I have not had a chance to update the blog... here are long overdue post on student achievements! 

Ian Shum finished the ABC's of the Violin Book 4 on September 21. That was a lot of 2nd position exercises but he didn't have much trouble with them! Congrats! 

In the same week, I had another pleasure to have Piet Hopmann finish the ABC's of the Violin book 2. Congratulations, Piet! He has been making a huge progress this school year. Keep up your good work! 

 On November 5, Emma Cheuk had her first book completion! This is a workbook for note reading and spelling, and we had fun working on it. Congratulations, Emma! You are almost done with another book, and I can't wait to post your photo again. 

 I am very proud of each one of my students, and very excited for their annual student recital on June 8! Keep working hard, everyone! 

I had a great time working and recording with a composer, Jim Johnston on March 30. He used to write music for WWE for many years. It was fun to play the violin solo line, and he was positive and super nice the entire time!

I'm happy to share the recordings of two pieces I played. Enjoy!

"What Could Have Been"
"Bound By Grace"

His studio was full of interesting gadgets and I had no idea what they are for, but I have some photos to share.

 Happy Spring (although it's snowing pretty hard here)! I'm posting student achievements. 

 This is long overdue but Yuna Matsumoto finished ABC's of Violin Book 1 on February 14. Congrats! Unfortunately she was to move out of country, so this was her last lesson. I miss working with her but hope she's doing well. 

 And recently, Liana Elliot completed Suzuki Violin book 1. It's been a year since we started working together, and she's making a good progress. Congrats and keep up your great work, Liana! 

 For about two months, I had worked on establishing a new youth orchestra in the Greater Stamford area (Connecticut) with my favorite colleagues. Now we have launched Stamford Youth Symphony, and our first orchestra rehearsal is on February 13! 
 
 You can read all about this new youth orchestra on our website. What makes us unique is that it's a student-driven organization, and we welcome ideas from our students. Besides that, we offer chamber music, workshops and student social events. Our chamber groups have started rehearsing, and I am very excited for these groups -- we have a violin quartet, oboe quartet, string quintet, etc etc. 

 If you are interested, please register with us and be in the loop. We are hearing auditions throughout the month and you can sign up here:
Feb 10
Feb 24 
 Please find our audition requirements here. 

 At the end of 2017, I had a great pleasure to play Jonathan David Russell's “Suite for Strings” solo part with my favorite colleagues at Hilltop Music Collective, and am so grateful that I had this opportunity. 

 Looking ahead, I will be playing in another concert with Hilltop on January 26. We are selecting the repertoire now, and I'm excited to perform in this beautiful place again! 

Happy New Year! Wishing you all a peaceful year. 

 It's long overdue but I'm sharing my students' achievements (finally...)

On November 18, Hisui Miyazaki finished Suzuki Violin Book 1. It happened to be her last lesson with me as her family was moving out of town. She had only had lessons for 10 months but she's learned a lot, finishing two books! I miss her and her family, but we are hoping to carry on via FaceTime. Congratulations, Hisui!  

 On December 11, Piet Hopmann finished Suzuki Violin Book 3! This is his fourth book completion within a year that he has studied with me. Congratulations! 

 And on December 13, Liana Elliot finished the ABC's of Violin book 1! This is her first, congratulations! Let's keep up the great work :) 

 I have an exciting year, and I will be revealing more as it gets closer to each concert and event. I am planning on featuring my students in the late spring and in June. Stay tuned!   

 So excited to play Family Concert at Ridgefield Main Library on Nov 18. The concert theme is "a musical journey around the world", representing 14 countries' folk music and folk-inspired music.
 The concert registration is already full, and there are families on waitlist!
 
  For the preparation of the concert, we have discussed the repertoire and what to share with our audience (it was a long process!), and rehearsed together -- and in every step of the preparation, we have had so much fun! We all are performers and teachers, and we find so much meaning in sharing live music with young audience. 


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I'm sharing a sneak-peek video of one of our selections, "Kookaburra" (Australia), arranged by Marc Chan. You'll see a bit of Benjamin (our pianist) and Marc's dog :) Enjoy!