Yearly Archives: 2012

President’s Message – November 2012

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November President’s Message

Dear Members,

We had a good turnout for the October 21 & 22 Masquerade Concert: 75 students representing 14 studios and total revenue of $1,580.00. There were some original and festive costumes, the performances were most enjoyable and the kids had a fabulous time! Ana Maria and Andreas Eckstein worked their usual magic with a stunning written program, seating with color photo paper place names, lighting, and cute goody bags. Once again they donated their time and all materials for the event. We would also like to thank our energetic new member, Kevin Kao, our own Alice Tsai’s son, for helping the Ecksteins with the concert’s set up and over all management; Kevin, you were a huge help! Chi Asada’s student and new MSSL South Coast’s president, Theresa Yu for helping with the check-in and overall facility of the programs.

I want to thank our members for bearing with us when our website experienced some technical difficulties the week of the Festival registration deadline. I realize some of you experienced frustration but we appreciated your patience and understanding. Thanks to our webmaster Andy Huynh’s tireless efforts, the problem was soon solved and our Festival registration ran smoothly. Special thanks to Melody Lu and Chi Asada for assisting Andy with the specific needs of our registration process!

I would like to give a hearty thanks in advance to Chi Asada, South Coast Festival Chair, Naoko Ono, Classical Festival Chair and Junko Nojima, Romantic Festival Chair for their hard work in organizing the upcoming Festival weekend of November 10th and 11th. Both events are very well planned and schedules sent out – ladies, we greatly appreciate everything you are doing to guarantee their success! The Classical Festival program fits comfortably within Fields Piano’s new store hours. However, the Romantic Festival, with 54 participants is a tight fit and will have to maintain a rigid schedule; teachers please inform your students of the absolute necessity of arriving punctually. Performance time will be kept to a strict 5 minutes for larger works; the time keeper will be instructed to cut off at precisely 5 minutes no matter where the student is in their piece. Pieces over 4 min will not have the scheduled 1 min adjudicator comment time immediately following the performance rather, judges will be asked to write during the performance. These stringent measures will allow us to stay on time and avoid any complication with Fields’ management. Thank you in advance for your consideration!

The first MSSL recital will occur on Saturday, November 17, 2:00 p.m. at the Park Plaza in Orange. This is a lovely facility and we will have recitals here every 3rd Saturday in January, February, April and May. There is a 12 student limit (first come first serve),$5 non-refundable registration fee; funds generated by these recitals will be used towards the purchase of prizes for seniors, all part of the new South Coast MSSL program. I understand that four students attended our first official MSSl meeting and they are excited to serve on its board. I would like to especially thank Victoria Park and Sandely Miller for making MSSL South Coast a reality – it will provide a valuable service to the Seniors at Park Plaza Orange and to our branch students! If you have any questions please contact Victoria at victoria_park@yahoo.com. Please check the South Coast website for further details and registration instruction.

The Adult Workshop will be held on Saturday, December 1 at Charla Edgar’s lovely and inviting home in Newport Beach; the registration deadline is Saturday, November 17. Charla does not use e-mail so those of you who want to enter students will need to contact her by phone: 949-723-1803. Please consider registering your adult students in this fun and student-friendly event!

We have a brand new Festival for Strings, Winds and Voice. Anna Kim is our chair for this event. It will be held Saturday, February 23 and will offer a judge from each instrument category listed above. Chi Asada graciously offers her services as accompanist for a minimal fee of $25 which includes one 30 minute rehearsal and festival performance. The accompanist fees will go to our branch. This is not only an excellent opportunity for instrumental students to try out their pieces before the C.M. evaluations but also a great $$ investment and value so take advantage of it!

Remember that the November 15 MTAC state CM registration deadline is fast approaching. Teachers’ worksheets and registration fees are due on November 16 – this is NOT a postmarked deadline.

There will be no President’s Message in December; please check the website regularly for updates. The MTAC South Coast board wishes you all a blessed Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas and joyous New Year!

Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field

President’s Message – October 2012

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October President’s Message

Dear Members,

 

It was good to see so many of you at our September meeting! We had a great turnout for our first meeting of the year.

We heard wonderful performances from our concerto competition winners, first place winner Jake Clayton; second place winner Kenichi Kiyama; and third place winner Yoko Nagafuchi. These youngsters gave impressive musical performances and it was a great way to start out the 2012-2013 year!

 

Saturday, October 6 is the deadline for our annual Masquerade Concert fundraiser, October 20 & 21. We hope to have a healthy participation from our members’ students in this fun and special event. Get your registration forms in on time! Participants will automatically earn 1 point toward a personalized trophy in our Trophy Exchange program! Ana Marie and Andréas Eckstein will work their magic on the beautiful printed programs and treat sachets. Our branch funds our events with proceeds from this fund raiser hence its importance!

Our new and improved on-line registration is now up and running for our fast approaching November 10 & 11 Classical & Romantic Festival. We anticipate a good enrollment and teacher participation in helping out for this event. Please remember that member non-participation fees are as follows: $50 for 3-5 students enrolled; $75 for 6-8 students enrolled; and $100 for 9-10 students enrolled. Your help is critical to ensure a smooth running event.

The first MSSL recital will occur on Saturday, November 17, 2:00 p.m. at the Park Plaza in Orange. This is a very nice facility and we are happy to be able to hold our recitals here. We will have recitals every 3rd Saturday in January, February, April and May. There is a 12 student limit (first come first serve),$5 non-refundable registration fee; funds generated by these recitals will be used towards the purchase of prizes for seniors, all part of the new South Coast MSSL program. If you have students who are interested in joining the MSSL board please contact Victoria Park asap at victoria_park@yahoo.com. Please check the South Coast website for further details and registration instruction.

We have a brand new Festival for Strings, Winds and Voice. Anna Kim is our chair for this event. It will be held Saturday, February 23 and will offer a judge from each instrument category listed above. Chi Asada graciously offers her services as accompanist for a minimal fee of $25 which includes one 30 minute rehearsal and festival performance. The accompanist fees will go to our branch. This is an excellent opportunity for instrumental students to try out their pieces before the C.M. evaluations so take advantage of it!

Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field

President’s Message – September 2012

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President’s Message
September 2012

Dear Members,

Welcome back to another event-packed year with MTAC South Coast! Your board hopes that you have all had an enjoyable and hopefully, relaxing summer and are ready for the new scholastic year.

 

I would like to remind members of the upcoming Wednesday, September 19, 10:00 AM branch meeting at Fields’ Piano. This is our only required meeting and is a very important CM information, general branch event and business meeting. The meeting will include performance of the concerto competition winners: First place winner Jake Clayton, student of Carol Stewart, will perform the third movement from W.A. Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 23, K. 488 in A Major; second place winner Kenichi Kiyama, student of Yang Bartolotti, will perform Eduard Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” op. 21 in D Minor, first movement; third place winner Yoko Nagafuchi, student of Chizuko Asada, will perform the first movement from W.A. Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 26, K. 537 in D Major. The Honorable Mention winner, Annie Chang (student of Dana Freeman) will not perform.

 

The other half of the meeting will include general announcements as well as specifics regarding the 2013 CM evaluations. If you cannot attend the Branch CM Information Meeting, please contact your CM Branch Chair Sandely Miller, sandely@cox.net, as soon as possible for approved alternatives. Teachers who do not attend the meeting may not be able to register their students in CM via the online registration system, and may risk having student registrations dropped automatically. We look forward to seeing all of our esteemed members at this special meeting!

 

Our first Vice President, Melody Lu has been working closely with Andy Huynh our Website and On-Line Event Designer and Master, on our on-line event registration. I encourage all of you to visit our website often for general up dates and our event calendar; by so doing everyone will be well-informed and up to date. Our new and improved on-line registration will be up and running for our fast approaching November 10 & 11 Classical & Romantic Festival. We think that you will be pleased with the overall efficacy of this program.

 

A very important event, our annual Masquerade Concert fundraiser is coming up on October 20 & 21. I encourage ALL of our members to enter students in this fun event. This year we hope for a high participation. Participants will automatically earn 1 point toward a personalized trophy in our Trophy Exchange program! Ana Marie and Andréas Eckstein will work their magic on the beautiful printed programs and treat sachets. Our branch funds our events with proceeds from this fund raiser hence its importance!

 

 

Our festival chair, Chi Asada will brief teachers on the new festival scoring system. We will be using this system for all of our branch festivals this year. If it proves satisfactory we will continue using it in years to come.

 

Melody and Andy are planning to add a photo gallery to our website. Before we can do this we will have to begin taking some pictures and that will start at the September 19th meeting; be prepared to “mug” for the camera!

 

Finally, at our branch meeting we will be taking a vote on the preferred emphasis for our performance master class:

 

2012/2013 Masterclass:

Option 1. All Chopin with Dr.Wojciech Kocyan

Option 2. Contemporary with Dr.Mikhail Korzhev

Or both 2012/2013.

 

 

I and the South Coast board look forward to seeing all of you at the meeting!

 

Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field

President’s Message – May 2012

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President’s Message
May 2012
Dear MTAC South Coast Members,
Wednesday, May 23, 10:00, Fields’ Piano (NOT May 16 as erroneously listed in my April message) is our end of the year branch meeting featuring Jyoti Hench and her pedagogical master class “Keep your mind on the music: Performance psychology for young pianists.” Results from the Contemporary Flare festival will be available at the meeting. We look forward to seeing all of you there!
I would like to thank Laura Chang, our CM Path B chair for such an excellent job of organizing this year’s Path B evaluations which took place Sunday, April 22nd and her studio. Students had a good time and enjoyed Susan McCormick’s evaluating.
I would also like to thank Jennifer Puhls, Branch Honors chair and Emily Hung, our Composers Today chair for the excellent job they did in organizing and running the joint recitals on Saturday, April 28 at Field’s Pianos. Congratulations to teachers and students on fine performances!
Sunday, May 6 was our branch’s Senior Recital. Dr. Xiaole Li did a wonderful job with the program, the recital itself, the programs and the refreshments afterwards. This year our recital only had four participants and though few in number acquitted themselves well with impressive, musical performances. Xiaole wanted to make this event even more special and invited teachers to play after the seniors performed; this was an added bonus for students as the adult performances were brilliant and inspiring. Special thanks to Dr. Deborah Brener and her violinist partner Antoinette Mahoney, Dr. Xiaole Li and her colleague, Ms Naomi Sen on their musical and artistic performances. Xiaole played her own lovely composition, “Two Dragons” as a tribute to the lucky year the seniors are graduating in! Congratulations to our graduating seniors and best wishes for your continued university studies and the hope that music will always play a special and important role in your lives!
Our Contemporary Flare Festival will take place on Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20. Our chair, Anna Kim, has worked very hard to organize and schedule students for this fun event. The registration process was facilitated by our website creator, Andy Huynh, who designed a new and very user friendly event registration for our branch. He worked closely with our Vice President, Melody Lu and our Festival chair, Chi Asada to get it ready in time for the Contemporary Flare. Many, many thanks to you four for such excellence and commitment to our branch! I was sorry to hear that we had such a low enrollment this year especially since this is our most popular event. Teachers, we need your participation in our branch sponsored events if our branch is to stay strong and healthy. Please make a resolution for the 2012-2013 year to encourage your students to enroll in our events – we absolutely cannot succeed without your help!
I am happy to announce that our Concerto Competition is underway for Saturday, June 9 at Fields’ Piano. We opened it up to both Long Beach and Orange Coast Cities. We have seven participants: four pianists from our branch; two violinists and one pianist from OCC branch. We have a distinguished panel of jurists: Dr. Wojciech Kocyan and Dr. Mikhail Korshev for piano and Dr. Aroussiak Baltaian for violin. A sincere thank you to Andréas Eckstein for his thoroughness and perseverance in making this event possible.
A very special thank you to Andréas Eckstein for designing a handsome advertisement for our branch that will be placed in the MTAC Convention 2012 program. Our branch secretary, Laura Chang will be submitting all the beautiful South Coast event programs that Andréas has created for us this 2011-2012 year to the MTAC “Media and Publication Awards”. While I cannot see the future, I can tell you that we stand a very good chance of winning first prize. As I have said before, I would bet money that no other branch has such professional and masterfully crafted event programs. You make our branch look very good indeed, thank you Andréas!!
Make sure that you check our website often for updates and general information.
Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field, M.M.

President’s Message – April 2012

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President’s Message
April 2012
Dear MTAC South Coast Members,
I would like to thank Sandley Miller, our high energy and efficient CM chair for the excellent job she did in organizing and running the CM 2012 evaluations; Sandely put in so much time and effort. She had some equally wonderful helpers: Margaret Tseng, CM theory chair; Anna Kim, String Chair; Anna Choi, Woodwind Chair; Andreas Eckstein, responsible for those beautiful and professional CM signs, and aiding in the smooth student traffic flow. Thank you for your excellence and professionalism! And finally, a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all of Our Members and their student volunteers who helped the evaluations run like clockwork. You all made our branch look very good indeed and set a standard of excellence to be coveted!
I would remind our members that the registration for our June 9 Concerto Competition is open; the deadline is Saturday, April 7. This event is open to ALL instruments. As mentioned in my September 2011 message, Chi Asada has graciously offered her services as branch accompanist, all proceeds going to the branch treasury. Winners will have a special winners’ concert with orchestral reduction for 2nd piano. This competition will be an essay to gauge if we will be able to offer a winners’ concert with orchestra in 2013. If you have any questions please contact Andreas Eckstein, CC chair at musica@adelphia.net or call: 949-646-9684.
We have a number of end-year events coming up:
CM Path B evals: Laura Chang, chair, Deadline for Registration: Sunday, April 8th
Branch Honors/Composers Today Joint Recitals:
Jennifer Puhl, BH chair Deadline for Registration: Sunday, April 15;
Emily Hung, CT chair, Deadline for Registration: Friday, April 6
Senior Recital:
Dr. Xiaole Li, chair Deadline for Registration: Sunday, April 15
Contemporary Flare Festival:
Anna Kim, chair, Deadline for Registration: Friday, April 6 for non-pianist students; Saturday, April 21 for pianists.
May branch meeting:
Wednesday, May 16, 10:00, Fields’ Piano end of the year branch meeting featuring Jyoti Hench and her pedagogical master class “Keep your mind on the music: Performance psychology for young pianists.” We look forward to seeing all of you there!
Please read the MTAC April Newsletter that was sent out and is also posted on-line. It gives detailed Convention registration information, a tentative program of events and other pertinent news.
Remember that final registration for Convention Programs is Sunday, April 15.
This year we will be submitting a branch advertisement in the MTAC Convention program. We need someone, either member or a member’s student who would be able to put together a professional looking ½ page (7”w x 4 1/2:”h) ad for us. Print quality PDF: Images must be at 300 dpi or higher with the fonts embedded. We must have the ad in on or by April 30. Please e-mail ASAP me at vlrfmm@yahoo.com if you or a student is interested in creating this for us.
Make sure that you check our website often for updates and general information.
Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field, M.M.

President’s Message – March 2012

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President’s Message
March 2012
Dear MTAC South Coast Members,
Our February 15 branch meeting at Fields’ Piano featured one of our own branch members, Dr. Deborah Brener; the meeting was well attended – thank you! Her presentation was “Around the World at the Piano: Becoming Multicultural in Today’s Piano Studio.” Debbie demonstrated the new CD’s which accompany her books and contain interactive rhythmic and melodic exercises; the exercises are fun and very useful pedagogically. The CD’s also contain interesting cultural, geographical and historical background for the given repertoire. Debbie’s husband, Marc, assisted her with the media equipment; thank you Marc!

I would like to thank Chi Asada, SCJBF chair and Junko Nojima, Sounds of Baroque chair for the excellent jobs they did in organizing and running the two festivals; thank you both so much for making these events possible through your commitment and dedication! Chi told me that there were 13 participating teachers and 9 of them were at the festival. Excellent attendance! Three out of the four teachers who weren’t there communicated with her and offered their help in some way. She feels this shows that we have excellent teamwork; I am inclined to agree. I speak for the entire South Coast board in thanking you teachers for your helpfulness and impressive “esprit de corps.” We are most grateful!
I would also like to thank Andréas Eckstein for the beautiful and impeccably designed SCJBF and Sounds of Baroque programs. Melody Lu told me that the judges commented on what extraordinary programs we had. Andreas, your programs are truly works of art; they are becoming legend. Thank you Andreas!

I would remind our members that the registration for our June 9 Concerto Competition is open; the deadline is Saturday, March 31. This event is open to ALL instruments. As mentioned in my September 2011 message, Chi Asada has graciously offered her services as branch accompanist, all proceeds going to the branch treasury. Winners will have a special winners’ concert with orchestral reduction for 2nd piano. This competition will be an essay to gauge if we will be able to offer a winners’ concert with orchestra in 2013.
We have a number of end-year events coming up: CM path B evals, Branch Honors/Composers Today recitals, Senior Recital, Contemporary Flare, our May branch meeting and the Concerto Competition. Make sure that you check our website often for due dates and event dates.
A special thank you to Lisa Honea for liaising with OCC and Long Beach branches to make the 2012 VOCE Recital and Competition possible. This is a very exciting event and it is inspiring to hear the winners’ recital at the MTAC annual Convention – the talent, is quite simply, phenomenal. Below is Lisa’s article on the February 11th event:
VOCE Recital and Competition
Thank you to all who participated in this year’s VOCE Recital and Competition. We had a very successful program with twenty-eight students from eleven studios participating. The standard of performance was excellent. I would like to thank Shelley Johnson and the Orange Coast Cities Branch for hosting the festival this year. I would also like to thank Janice Luna and the Long Beach Branch who partnered with us.
Both Dr. Andrew Honea and Lisa Honea’s students placed first in their divisions.
Best wishes to you and your students as they participate in the second round on April 29, at Chapman College.

Lisa Honea

Best wishes for a good C.M. 2012! Thank you in advance to Sandely Miller, members and student helpers for making the South Coast evaluations possible!!
Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field, M.M.

President’s Message – February 2012

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President’s Message

February 2012

Dear MTAC South Coast Members,

Our February 15 branch meeting, 10:00 a.m. at Fields’ Piano will feature one of our own branch members, Dr. Deborah Brener. Her presentation will be “Around The World At the Piano: Becoming Multicultural In Today’s Piano Studio.” The April 2011 edition of The American Music Teacher featured her article by the same title. You will not want to miss this fun and motivating presentation. I look forward to seeing you there!

At the February branch meeting we will take a survey as to the date for our 2012 performance master class: Sunday, November 11, 1-5:00 p.m. or combine it with our February 2013 meeting, Wednesday, 10:00 AM, 2-20-13. Please give this some thought between now and our meeting.

I would remind our members that the registration for our June 9 Concerto Competition is open; the deadline is Saturday, March 31. This event is open to ALL instruments. As mentioned in my September 2011 message, Chi Asada has graciously offered her services as branch accompanist, all proceeds going to the branch treasury. Winners will have a special winners’ concert with orchestral reduction for 2nd piano. This competition will be an essay to gauge if we will be able to offer a winners’ concert with orchestra in 2013.

Our on-line registration for the Baroque Festival is now open. The deadline is Tuesday, February 7. The SCJBach Festival deadline has also been extended to February 7.

CM evaluation dates and locations are given below.

Musically yours,

Vivian Lee R. Field, M.M.

President’s Message – January 2012

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President’s Message
January 2012
Dear MTAC South Coast Members,
I realize that in my December 2011 message I inadvertently forgot to thank a very important person: Dr. Xioale Li. Xiaoleis our branch festival hospitality chair and she did an excellent job in setting up refreshments and procuring lunch for the Classical/Romantic festival judges, chair and co-chairs. All of our board members and general membership deeply appreciate your excellent contribution Xiaole and my sincere apologies for my omission!
Our February 15 branch meeting, 10:00 a.m. at Fields’ Piano will feature one of our own branch members, Dr. Deborah Brener. Her presentation will be “Around The World At the Piano: Becoming Multicultural In Today’s Piano Studio.” The April 2011 edition of The American Music Teacher featured her article by the same title. You will not want to miss this fun and motivating presentation!
At the February branch meeting we will take a survey as to the date for our 2012 performance master class: Sunday, November 11, 1-5:00 p.m. or combine it with our February 2013 meeting, Wednesday, 10:00 AM, 2-20-13. Please give this some thought between now and our meeting.
I would remind our members that the registration for our June 9 Concerto Competition is open; the deadline is Saturday, March 31. This event is open to ALL instruments. As mentioned in my September 2011 message, Chi Asada has graciously offered her services as branch accompanist, all proceeds going to the branch treasury. Winners will have a special winners’ concert with orchestral reduction for 2nd piano. This competition will be an essay to gauge if we will be able to offer a winners’ concert with orchestra in 2013.
On January 2nd, the online database opened for teachers of Panel and general C.M. students to enter their repertoire for the Evaluation Report Form and to apply for convention and branch honors. An e-mail was sent out in November by the CM Panel Chair and our own CM chair with complete instructions for the Panel evaluations.
Remember that the on-line repertoire registration deadline for all Panel students is January 10 with the general CM repertoire deadline quickly following on January 31. Please carefully read through the following CM evaluation information that our hard working CM chair, Sandely Millerhas compiled below.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and blessed New Year!
Musically yours,
Vivian Lee R. Field, M.M.
Evaluation Form information (Repertoire, Convention, Branch Honors, Day and AM or PM Evaluation Requests, Carpool) can be entered online between Jan. 2 and Jan. 31 by logging into your Teacher Home Page atwww.mtac.org. The database closes Jan 31, 11:59 PM. No late information can be accepted. NO exceptions.
The Convention Recital theme for 2012, all instruments & voice, will be “Composers Born in Russia”. A list of eligible composers can be found at www.mtac.org on your Teacher Home Page
CM Calendar and Locations:
· String Evaluation and Theory Exam: Saturday, March 17 at Chinese Baptist Church of Central Orange County in Irvine for both performing evaluation and theory exam.
· Voice Evaluation and Theory Exam: Saturday March 17 at Chinese Baptist Church of Central Orange County in Irvine for both performing evaluation and theory exam.
· Flute Theory Exam: Saturday March 17 Chinese Baptist Church of Central Orange County in Irvine
· Piano Theory Exam: Saturday March 17 at Northwood High School in Irvine (new location) for piano only
· Piano Evaluation: Saturday/Sunday March 24/25 at UCI
· Flute Evaluation and Theory Exam: Sunday March 25 at UCI
· Branch Honors Recital: Saturday April 28 at Fields Piano in Santa Ana
Important: 99.9% of CM information will be sent by email, so if you do not have email, please designate someone to receive this information for you. Check your email AT LEAST a couple of times a week. If your email address has been changed, please update it in your teacher information page online and also inform the CM Chairperson (sandely@cox.net).
Please let your students know NOW about the CM dates above.
REMINDER: There will be NO changes made to the Certificate of Merit Student Evaluation
Schedule once it is finalized and e-mailed to teachers in February.