Piano Teachers (and others): Do you schedule recitals way ahead of time or not?

United States
March 17, 2010 8:41am CST
Good morning~ I'm a piano and clarinet teacher, and I find that scheduling my recitals is always a challenge (and a huge headache)! I don't currently have tons of students--only about eleven right now. So, I can't afford for tons of students to be missing at recitals. Plus, I really feel everyone needs to be there and participate for their own experience. When do you schedule your recitals? I've ended up starting the process after Christmas, but it takes me a long time. We're having ours May 1st this year. I try to work with parents as much as possible to come up with a good date, but it's hard. Everyone has so much stuff going on. I'm considering scheduling next year's recitals NOW so that people now way ahead of time that this is coming. However, I'm concerned that other things will come up that people won't be able to get out of (school/family events, etc.). I know there's no perfect or ideal day or time to have the recital, but I'm shooting for optimum results. Let me know when and how you go about scheduling your recitals. Would be great to hear about this. Also, how many of you have your students memorize your music; and how many of you allow your students to use their music at the recitals? Do you have one per year or two? I've ended up only having one per year; but I'd really like to have two. Okay, let me know how you do this. I'd love to get your feedback and learn from everyone else's tips. Thanks so much! Have a wonderful, musical day! ~thepianoladie (aka, artsyfartsygal)
1 response
Torunn
@Torunn (8607)
• Norway
18 Mar 10
Not a teacher, but I've taken piano lessons as well as horn lessons and been participating in several recitals. I used to swap with a friend who also plays piano and french horn, we'd play one piece each on piano and horn. Our horn teacher usually planned the recitals some months ahead. Not because we would practice that long, but so that it shouldn't collide with anything else as most of us had other things too. School band, sports etc. She did that even for the test recitals, when we played for each other with no other audience. As for memorizing or using our music, I think we did both. I think I've mainly played with music, except for Mozarts third horn concerto. I think that's the one piece nearly all hornists memorize :-) I know that she's doing things a bit different with her younger students now, they often play without their music, and they play a lot in groups. Not so easy for piano though, the group thingy. Good luck with the planning!
artsyfartsygal
@artsyfartsygal (121)
• United States
8 May 10
Thank you! I'm not a planner by nature anyway...so planning is a challenge for me! But I have been thinking I ought to at least try and get the fall recital scheduled soon! Wish you well with all your musical endeavors, too! :)