Mexico = Para.. para..paradise!

Hi everybody!

I hope you're enjoying your Christmas Break! I am having the time of my life here. Life's so good!! I love being with my family! When I got home, I literally felt like I was living my own version of Coldplay's song "Paradise"; watch it on YouTube is way cool!

I had a recital last week and it went pretty well. A lot of people came, and I'd like to thank all of you who could make it. Someone told me that it was the most amazing experience he has had this year! I believe him and I don't think it was because of me, but because of the music. Liszt B minor Sonata is one of the greatest pieces written for piano; it's full of all sort of feelings you can experience! It's evil, romantic, joyful, triumphant, sad, and intimate all at the same time! I guess that's why is 30 min. long haha..

I've had the opportunity to visit my very first piano teacher! She's really old now. My mom and I went to her house and it's so interesting to me how the smell of her house brought back many memories from my childhood. I wish I could have taken a picture of how she set up the table for us. Oh my goodness, I almost cried. She was a great concert pianist. She studied in Germany for a while, where she met Claudio Arrau! She was also very good friends with Francis Poulenc!! My teacher and her brother premiered Poulenc's concerto for 2 pianos in Mexico City after working with him in Paris! How cool is that!? I'm very proud to say I studied with her.

I've also had the opportunity to eat all the good food haha.. I feel like I can never get enough of it. My mom made sweet gorditas with hot chocolate last Sunday when we were at our grandma's and watched Sunday movies. I've eaten my favorite tacos about 4 times.. haha they're SOO good! I love to hang out with my friends here.. is just way too much fun!!

Also.. one of my dreams came true!! I can't really post about this but I've shared it with my closest friends. All I can tell you is that I wasn't expecting it at all. It was a really sweet experience :) ... and no.. Isn't about me being engaged.

A very good year went by, full of good memories, lessons learned, happiness and many other things. I'm very lucky to be at BYU.

Here's a picture of my family.Words can't express how much I love them.

I'm very grateful for my family and each one of you. Thank you for your support and friendship!

Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2012!!

The joys of teaching piano

I love teaching piano! It's so rewarding to see your students' progress!

For my piano practicum class, we have to bring one of our students to have a lesson in front of the class. After your lesson, Dr. Anderson gives you some insights and ideas to improve your teaching. Well, today was my turn and my student came to class this morning. I've been teaching Peter since the 2nd week of September, so he's been taking lessons from me for about 2 months. I was kind of nervous, but I think it went really well. He played 3 pieces he's learned from the first Suzuki book, and he played really well! I was surprised! He's usually pretty good, but I thought he was gonna get nervous to play in front of all of us, but he managed it really well. Dr. Anderson said it was really impressive that he's only taken piano lessons for a couple of months and he's playing really well! :)

His mom told me that she's tried to make him take piano lessons before, but he wasn't interested, so he didn't; but now he's practicing all the time, and his sister is jealous that he's taking piano lessons, so I'm gonna teach them both in January! I'm way excited! Peter is so dedicated. He always comes prepared to his lesson. Last lesson was on 11-11-11, and I asked him if he had a special wish to make at 11:11, and he said:"I want to be a better pianist", isn't that cute!!!??

He brought me a gift today, and I opened it and saw a pair of "smart" gloves. They're SO cool!!! You can use your iPod or phone without taking off your gloves!! I've showed them to everybody because they're so dang cool! haha..

On the other hand, my piano lesson was today, and it went pretty good!

Then, I got a root beer float to celebrate that my day has been freaking awesome!

Sundays

Hola!

So, today is Sunday,and I love Sundays! Not only because sometimes I get to take naps, but because they always involve uplifting experiences. I love going to Churh! It's so awesome. I love Sunday School and Relief Society, and I really appreciate that people take the time to prepare lessons for the rest of us. Thank you for all of you who teach us!

I also like Sundays because I get to talk to my family; well, I do that everyday, but on Sundays is more meaningful I guess. If there's something I really miss from home, is my family and all the things we do together on Sundays. We go to Church, we have lunch together... I loved all the conversations we had while eating; they were always so interesting. After that, we would do whatever, maybe taking a nap or reading scriptures, etc. THEN for dinner we would go to my Güely Angélica's home!! I love my Güely!! (btw. that means Grandma..haha) She is the coolest Güely EVER!!! We would watch Sunday(LDS)movies, FHE, and DINNER!! woot woot!! My Güely makes the most AMAZING homemade flour tortillas. OMG. to die for! And the scrambled eggs she makes.. haha soo good!! She makes them with a salsa, oh man. SO. GOOD.

Don't tell her, but when I was younger, I used to make fun of those LDS movies we watched together, and now if I start thinking about those moments, I start feeling homesick. It's so funny how when you're younger you take everything for granted, and now, I'd give everything I have to have those moments together again. I am SOO excited to go to Mexico!! I'll be there in 1 month and 5 days!! Woot!!

...

You know I'm all about music.. on Sundays I don't like to listen to the cliché sunday music, because it's not harmonically interesting to me. If you like it it's totally fine, it just doesn't really click with me. I like to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of course, and I have my own Sunday classical music!! It's so awesome. haha... well, I think is awesome. Classical music is so powerful. It can communicate with your soul without words. It's just amazing.

Here are some examples of pieces that make me feel closer to God.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
(This is the first part of the 2nd. movement)



Mahler Symphony No. 8 "Symphony of a thousand"
This is one of the most powerful endings I've ever heard!

I love the lyrics of the "Chorus Mysticus"
"All that passes away
Is only a likeness;
The inadequacy of earth
Here finds fulfilment;
The ineffable
Here is accomplished"



Liszt: Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude
Very spiritual piece.



Beethoven: Sonata op. 109
This is the 2nd mov.

Summer-Fall update..

Hola!!

I haven't posted in like.. forever.

Life's pretty good. Summer was awesome; maybe because I lived with my Amigosarita, aka Britny Clark. She's sooooo awesome! Seriously, you need to get to know her. So many cool memories. One cool thing about our friendship, is that we have some sort of telepathy. No kiding. Anyway.. summer went by really fast. I was a counselor for the Young Musicians Summer Fest, I worked, I practiced piano.. I went to Cafe Rio like 30 times, frozen yogurth everyday, and I went to like 10+ new restaurants. I also played in the Gina Bachauer International Masterclasses, it was pretty cool. I have a scandalous story about that Festival.. if you're really curious about it, just let me know and I'll tell ya haha..

Then Fall started. Last fall as an undergrad at BYU!! yay!! This year I'll be the president of Utah Music Teachers' Association BYU CHapter, and it is SO MUCH FUN!! It's a lot of work, but I love working with people, and I love organizing events, so I hope I'm doing good. :) We have so many cool projects!! We already have a Recital Series, we've been on the radio, we'll have a competition, some trips to super awesome USA cities, etc. I'm so stocked!

Also, I'm working on my senior recital and grad school auditions repertoire. I'm kinda nervous about this. haha..

I miss my family.. but I'll see them very soon! I'm soo excited to go to Mexico!!! :D

AND just cuz.. I'm gonna write things that make me happy and things that make me fall in love.

Things that make me happy
1. Root beer floats
2. Prokofiev 3rd. Piano concerto!!
3. Cafe Rio
4. Talking to my mom on the phone
5. talking to my brothers
6. Writing e-mails
7. English Language
8. clorox-wipes haha.. it's true!!
9. talking to my piano friends, specially BYU piano majors
10. tacos de trompo
11. naps
12. Chopin Polonaise in A flat major
13. Yogurthland
14. SCRAPBOOKING
15. making people smile :D
16. SHOPPINGGG!!!!
17. Petrushka

things that make me fall in love
1. Blue eyes
2. Prokofiev 2nd Concerto
3. Rachmaninov 3rd. Concerto
4. Rachmaninov 2nd. Sonata
5. anything Kapustin
6. anything RAVEL!!
7. anything SCRIABIN!!!!!! WAAA I love Scriabin
8. gourmet cousine
9. when a cute guy says my name
10. anything Russian
11. Any piano piece played by Richter, Ashkenazy, Lubyantsev, Geniusas, and Pogorelich.
12. Ella Fitzgerald's songs <3
13. when guys wear gray suits (O.M.G.) haha

so.. there you go! Now you know how to make me happy or make me fall in love..

I LOVE being a Piano Performance Major!!

Hi everyone!! I've been so bad about blogging, I think I haven't written anything since last semester! I guess I've been busy, but since tomorrow is a holiday, I have some extra time :)

Life's so so so SOO amazingly good right now!!! I just love it!!! I love being a piano performance at BYU!! The faculty is awesome, and let me think what can I say about piano peers.. they're the BEST!!!

Last week was really cool. Before the week started, I had Music Literature (306) listening test, and let me tell you.. they're really tough, and guess what!! I got a 97%!! The Testing center screen said "Congratulations" I think that's the highest score I've gotten on a test at BYU. So, I felt really cool about that!! But it didn't finish there, I had to take the written exam (for the same class) and those are way WAY harder. They have 3 mortal essays. I got a 90% on that one!! The essays took me FOR.E.VER... but I feel good about them :) So that's the prelude for the awesome week I had.

On monday, we had the opportunity to have Nelita True, from Eastman School of Music, as a guest artist. The master class was awesome, and we gave her a present, a flower and a card, and she was so happy about it!! She said that in over 40 years that she's been traveling around the world, it was the first time that students did that for her.

Then on tuesday, I got to go to a VIP lunch with her and MTNA Officers!!! Isn't that cool!?? That was freaking awesome!!! We went to the Skyroom, and omg.. I really enjoyed chatting with her!! She's sooo down to earth! She gave pretty cool insights.
Later on, I had the opportunity to have a lesson with her! I was nervous, because she's such a big deal, and she gets to hang out with the best pianists in the world. So anyway, I played Rachmaninov Etude Tableaux Op.39 No.5 for her, and she told me that the opening was absolutely perfect!! Then she told me a bunch of stuff about the rest of it. Oh my, I really enjoyed working with her.

I went to practice that night and I had to memorize my hungarian rhapsody because we're having a recital very soon..

On thursday, we had a lecture with Dr. Paul Pollei, the Founder and Artistic Director of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. It was really insightful!! He's so amazing!! I like his ideas on how to teach. He is so generous too. I gave him a copy of the UMTA newsletter I wrote, because I knew that he was gonna like it because Lukas Geniusas was on it, and he won the Gina Bachauer last year.. AND he liked it a lot!!!

Then Dr. Holden sent an e-mail to Christie, and said that the newsletter was fantastic!!! yayy!!! I'm glad people like what I do :)(pa-pum.... hum.. inside joke)

And last night, I got to hang out with piano majors!! They're so cool!! We went ice skating, and I'm soooo bad at it. I feel so sore!! then we went to Halie's apt. and watched a random movie. It was a lot of fun!!

mm what else??

Ohh yess. I got a website!! and I think it's soo cool!! I'm excited about that too :)

Life's good my friends.

I have a LOONG list of stuff I want to do, they're very cool projects.. we'll see what happens!!


Did you know I love taking pictures?? well.. here are some of them :)

Nelita True and me :)




Ryan, Nelita T., Britny, Me, and Rebekah


Aren't they sooo cute??


After Dr. Pollei's Lecture


With Dr. Pollei