Dear Parents and Students,
I trust you all had a relaxing summer! As with the rest of life, violin and fiddle lessons are happily starting again with the fall air. I’m so looking forward to seeing you all and making lots of music this year! I’m pleased that everyone is back for lessons and we’ll be continuing to grow together!
This post is (most of) the email I just sent to everyone. I’ve made it newsletter style so you can read what is relevant.
1. Lesson Weeks
2. Parking/Construction
3. Tuesday Veggie Pickup
4. Studio Master List
5. Studio and Skype Policy
6. Invoices
7. Parent-Teacher Interviews
8. Music Camp! Atlantic Canada Suzuki Institute (ACSI)
a. Dizzolve Laundry Campaign
b. Evergreen Recycling Campaign
9. Blog
10. How to Prepare for Back to Music!
11. New Violin Sizes
12. Parent Lessons
13. STEP Registration
14. REAL Program
15. STEP Solo Concert Signup
16. STEP Optional Classes – Fiddle and Orchestra
17. STEP Graduation Tapes
18. STEP Dates 2014-2015
19. Draft Studio List
20. Other News
1. Lesson Weeks – My 2014-2015 studio will run from September 8 to June 25th following the school year. Within those 39 weeks I will offer 32 weeks of Monday lessons and 36 weeks of lessons on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
2. Parking/Construction – see email.
3. Tuesday Veggie Pickup – see email
4. Studio Master List – I will send the master list out by email after next week when I’ve confirmed all the emails. You can use it to swap lessons when you have a conflict and also to be in touch with other students for violin play dates! Please see a draft schedule below.
5. Studio and Skype Policy – These will remain largely unchanged this year. There is a new add-on for black-outs. Please plan to be able to use Skype as needed (storm days). If you know of a similar program you’d rather use please let me know. Unfortunately, I don’t have an iphone so I can’t use FaceTime. I am asking that everyone sign their name on a hard copy of the invoice this year so I know you’ve read these policies. I will have the invoices and policies printed off for your first lesson. The policies are attached to this email.
6. Invoices – I will be sending these out individually to everyone in the next few days. I will have a hard copy for your first lesson. Payment methods and fees are the same as previous years.
7. Parent-Teacher Interviews – Last year’s interviews were really helpful for me to continue offering the best lessons possible for your children. Please note that there will again be parent-teacher interviews in January.
8. Music Camp! Atlantic Canada Suzuki Institute (ACSI) – ACSI will be held from June 29th to July 3rd 2015. I know many people were traveling last year but schedule it in now for this year! It really is a lot of fun and something to look forward to all year! I’m planning to have information out earlier this year and have earlier deadline dates so that schedules can be planned further in advance. If you have friends from away who play, invite them to ACSI! We love new visitors! Camp has a lot of options for non-STEP students too!
a. Dizzolve Laundry Campaign – Everyone does laundry! Spread the word!! The laundry sheet fundraiser is ongoing for ACSI. I’ve been using them all summer and they work wonderfully. Please consider supporting ACSI and reducing waste by ordering through our campaign http://mydizolve.com/campaign/atlantic-suzuki/#.VAcxF2OO6CQ
b. Evergreen Recycling Campaign – In order to raise funds for FUN extra activities at ACSI we have an account at Evergreen Recycling. Just bring your bag into the express area and print off the tags using the STEP phone number
738 – 2277. If you have any trouble, just ask for help.
9. Blog – I am still aspiring to write more on my blog evelynosborne.com – stay tuned!
10. How to Prepare for Back to Music – I realize that many people take the summer off of practicing but now is the time to get your schedule back together with new enthusiasm. As you schedule your other activities and homework time, schedule in daily practice too! If you make the commitment to play your violin every day you will find it easy to learn new pieces! To prepare for back to music, take out your review sheet and play everything on it up to the piece you knew in June. Follow the days so that by your lesson next week you’ve played all your pieces at least once. Don’t worry if it sounds squeaky and scratchy at first just keep playing! If your violin is dusty – it will sound dusty! But some review will get it sounding great again in a few days! Remember to bring all your books to every lesson! Parents don’t forget a notepad too!
11. New Violin Sizes – I will check everyone next week for sizing. If your child has grown a lot over the summer please be prepared to be in touch with Rodney deVries about getting a new size.
12. Parent Lessons – for those parents who would like to play this year there are several options. We’re hoping to have enough interest to run some sort of group class through STEP. The nature of the class will depend on who signs up. Private Lessons – I will happily offer private instruction to parents who want to play, just be in touch.
13. STEP Registration – STEP registration is happening this coming Saturday, September 6th from 9am-Noon at Irwin’s Court in the Arts and Culture Centre. The group class schedule is done and will be released in the next few days. There are some exciting changes happening at STEP and it looks like a great year! If you’ve been away from STEP this is the year to return!
14. REAL Program – The City of St. John’s and STEP have partnered to offer free group class and violin lesson tuition to families who are in financial need. This is only open to STEP students. If you know of someone who is interested please ask them to contact REAL.
15. STEP Solo Concert Signup – Solo Concerts will now be on Saturday mornings – no more Sunday afternoons! I will have a list of the STEP solo concert dates in my studio next week. Please look at the list below and pick your first and second choice. The sign up for concerts will be different this year. We’re asking everyone to sign up at the start of the year, there will be a limit on how long concerts will be, the last solo concert is in APRIL and there will be a two-week deadline for any changes. This will help everyone be really prepared for their concert and have a great performance experience! Plan to attend them all as audience to support your friends!
16. STEP Optional Classes – If you are not already in Fiddle or Orchestra consider it for this year. They are great fun and really expand your child’s musical experience! You can join fiddle once you can play Minuet 1 and Orchestra starts at Mid-Book 2. The Young Virtuosi will be for Book 5 students and you can join in January. Let’s get cracking on the Bach Double! Twinkle Toes (Early childhood music) is great for younger siblings ages 0-3. STEP Fiddlers is from 6-7 on Thursdays and Orchestra is Tuesday afternoons. Young Virtuosi will be on Saturday mornings. Websites:
Fiddle – http://www.suzukinl.ca/stepfiddlers/
Twinkle Toes – http://www.suzukinl.ca/early_childhood.htm and https://www.facebook.com/InfantToddlerMusic
17. STEP Graduation Tapes – if you are graduating a book this year, you’ll have to submit your graduation tape to me no later than the week of October 13th so I can review it before the STEP deadline of October 25th.
18. STEP Group Class/Solo Concert Dates – Here are the STEP dates:
• September 6th – In-person Registration
• September 27th – First Group Class
• October 4th – Group Class
• October 18th – Group Class
• October 25th – Group Class
• November 1st – Solo Concert
• November 8th – Graduation Concert
• November 15th – Group Class
• November 22nd – Solo Concert
• November 29th – Group Class
• December 6th – Christmas Play-In
• December 13th – Solo Concert
• January 10th – Group Class
• January 17th – Solo Concert
• January 24th – Group Class
• January 31st – Solo Concert
• February 7th – Group Class
• February 14th – Solo Concert
• February 21st – Group Class
• February 28th – Solo Concert
• March 7th – Group Class
• March 14th – Solo Concert
• March 21st – Group Class
• March 28th – Group Class
• April 11th – Solo Concert
• April 18th – Group Class
• April 25th – Group Class
• May 2nd – Spring Concert
• May 9th – Group Class
• May 23rd – Group Class
• May 30th – Solo Concert
• June 6th – Final Group Class
• June 13th – Final Concert
• June 29th to July 3rd – Atlantic Canada Suzuki Institute (Summer Camp)
19. Draft Studio List – a basic list – see email
20. Other news – see email for more
We had a nice summer playing with the cats and ducks in the backyard. All our ducklings are grown up and huge! Two of them are very friendly and may “love” bite you if you go back to visit. Be careful! They mean well, but it can hurt! They may ask to be petted, petting them on the chest is best but prepare for your toes/shoes to be nibbled!
Peter is still working on his dissertation, but is getting back to doing private birthday shows and starting to teach private magic lessons. If you know of anyone who is interested, please give them our number. Shows are for those 4+ and lessons for those 8+. He is extremely entertaining!
I’ve been head hunted to teach on the online violin website Violin Tutor Pro as their fiddle expert. It was nice to be asked! It’s a neat format and I’ll let you know more as it goes along.
My first book should be out sometime this year. My co-editor, Dr. Anna Guigne, and I are putting the final touches on The Songs that Nearly Got Away! Volume Four of Kenneth Peacock’s Songs of the Newfoundland Outports. For the past 4 years we’ve been working on this and it’s nearing completion. We’re very excited!
I’ve agreed to start writing another book with Dr. Mick Moloney from NYU on our common research about the McNulty Family, an Irish-American vaudeville group from the 1940s. I will also have several scholarly articles coming out in national journals and international edited collections.
I have several upcoming performances – please see my website: https://evelynosborne.com/performances/upcoming-performances/
There are also some exciting plans afoot for teaching but I’ll let you in on those as they progress.
Evelyn Osborne, PhD 