Spotlight On…
Stellar student performances, recordings, and stories
Spotlight On: Sienna Flanigan
Sienna Flanigan Kindergarten Sienna began taking piano lessons with me in January. She is a very excited girl, always with a story to tell and eager to show people what she has learned. When Sienna took her first lesson, she was a blank slate. We started by focusing on the difference between spaghetti (straight, hard) and macaroni (loose, curved) fingers, finger numbers 1-5, and groups of two and three black keys. She loves to play rhythm games with the Boomwhackers, and after almost every lesson she discovers a new instrument in the room to try out. After a few short lessons, Sienna could easily find groups of two or three black keys “high as the sky”,...
Read MoreSpotlight On: Derek Maggio
Derek Maggio High School Junior For the 2010-2011 school year I taught music in Lincoln, California. This was my first year teaching anything other than private lessons, and I was on my own. It was a year full of excitement, frustration, and challenges. The frustration was inevitable, but I welcomed the challenges with open arms. One of my good challenges was a junior named Derek. He was an advanced guitar student in my first beginning guitar class, and I am sure I was a useless teacher for him in that case. He also began the year playing guitar in the marching band…a strange concept to most band directors and one of my biggest challenges of the year. Despite not...
Read MoreWhat is the Spotlight?
“Spotlight On…” is a space where students who excel beyond their own expectations are highlighted. If a student has a particularly good lesson, a great performance at one of our semester recitals, is accepted into a college music program, is awarded section leader or first chair, makes it into the youth symphony, or any variety of special achievements, I want to let the whole world know. Spotlights are given when a student really goes above and beyond. This is not a “student of the month”award. There may be months where no students receive a spotlight, and there may be multiple students in the same month. These features are not reserved...
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