Sunday,
February 10th, 2019
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Lately I have visiting Buena Vista Care Center often, and the activities director asked me to come this Sunday to perform for the residents. It was a rainy day , like many of the past days here in Santa Barbara. I wanted to perform Brahms' Capriccio 2 since I have been working on it for many months, and it is just about time to start playing it for people. First I warmed up with the Raindrop Prelude, hoping that some of the seniors picked up my specific choosing of piece given the weather. I jumped into Capriccio 2 next, and played it well enough to get me excited for tomorrow, when I will play it for Alexander Gardens. I just started adding pedal to Capriccio 2, and I am having a great time incorporating it in my playing. I have been practicing it staccato for my entire practice history, so I have a good foundation of note preciseness. Sometimes when I practice pieces I will add the pedal early on, which can make it easier to be sloppy while retaining a "pleasant" sound.
I finished playing at Buena Vista with Aria by Bach, and walked out feeling good about my performance. The weekend activities director expressed her gratitude and so did the residents. I am planning to visit again in a couple of weeks, and determined to play Capriccio 2 again with great confidence.
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Saturday,
February 16th, 2019
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This Saturday I had the opportunity to play for the residents of Villa Riviera. I was excited because I have been performing Brahms' Capriccio 2 with confidence at other retirement homes and I wanted to see if I could continue the trend here. I began by playing a couple of Beethoven sonatas, jumping into Capriccio 2 after. I received a lot of applause for Capriccio 2, which gave me even more confidence to play it for future homes. It is my hope that I am able to incorporate it in my regular list of pieces, however I did not do that for Brahms' Capriccio 1. Perhaps I can use this as a learning opportunity and play Capriccio 2 at every home for a couple of months, since I am not so sure I did that for Capriccio 1. A few months back I reviewed Capriccio 1 and it came back to me after 2 or 3 days, but I was not able to perform it for the seniors again due to being busy with other pieces.
I finished playing at Villa Riviera with my usual Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, Chopin, and Listz pieces. The residents gave me a lot of applause, so I am happy for that. I will be visiting Villa Riviera soon and maybe then I will have more new material to play.
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