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Congratulations to everyone who participated in the PPA Ensemble Festival held earlier this week. Your performances were fun and inspiring. We were all so impressed that the pieces performed were all learned during the summer. Amazing!

We would love to post some of the performances online. If you would like to share your performance please upload it to youtube and we can put a link of it here on peerymusic.com. Please email info@peerymusic.com when it’s uploaded. Maybe you will even make our homepage!

The Ensemble Festival is right around the corner!

In consideration of your time and that the Festival is on a school night, we are breaking the Ensemble Festival into 3 different sections of 1 hour each. Out of consideration to all of the performers you are expected to come on time and stay for the duration of your section. You are welcome to come to as many additional sections as you like. The playing is going to be great!

Students are listed in their sections below. THIS IS NOT PERFORMANCE ORDER. Everyone should come 10 minutes early to their section so we can start promptly and end on time. We have tried to keep siblings together. Email schedule@peerymusic.com if we missed something and we can make adjustments.

Dress: casual
Habits Students: bring your music!
All Students: Bring your pink sheets – this is your ticket to the performance and how we determine playing order. If you happen to forget your sheet, or have lost it, we will have extra there.
BRING SOMETHING TO EAT OR DRINK. Refreshments will be outside.

This is a FUN not formal event – so we hope you will all have a great time hearing what everyone has learned just over the summer!

TUESDAY 6:30-7:30
Habits Students grades K-1
Players 1 Class with Neil (Braeden, Brandon, Kai)
Players 2 Class with Neil (Lucas, Michael, Sam, Tag)
Jamie C – mastery
Luke C – mastery
Jared S – mastery

TUESDAY 7:30-8:30
Habits Students grades 2 and up
Players 2 Class with Christie (Tessa, Soren, Nicole, Cipriana, Zoe)
Players 3 Class with Christie (Hazel, JD, Laura, Anne)
Players 5 Class with Christie (Christien, Jiliane, Willy, Cyrus, Ved)
Players 5 Class with Christie (Hannah, Micah, Elyssa, Jenna)
Henry S – mastery
Caroline W – mastery

WEDNESDAY 6:30-7:30
All Habits students who have signed up for Wednesday
Players 1 Class with Estee (Hunter, Siyi, Amelie)
Players 2 Class with Martin (Allison, Samantha)
Players 1 Class with Martin (John, Nathan)
Players 9 Class with Christie (Natalie, Shuan, Amy)
Joojay H – mastery
Iris K – mastery

Jessica was just named as scoring the highest grade for the National Music Conservatory examination Grade 7 for her center and for the entire state of California.

Congratulations Jessica!

We are trying to simplify our system, but at the moment it is still a bit complicated and we are still getting in new student and change requests. To avoid confusion and people showing up at the wrong day and time come fall we ask that everyone recheck the fall rosters to insure that you are placed in the right class. We want to make sure we have this information correct and need your help to do so.

If you find errors, want to change classes, need the password or have any other schedule issues please email SCHEDULE@PEERYMUSIC.COM. DO NOT email our Director, Mr Skousen.  This will help keep the process more simple on our end.

The new fall schedule will start AUGUST 30.

CLICK HERE FOR HABITS FALL ROSTER

CLICK HERE FOR PLAYERS FALL ROSTER

What is a monster concert? A monster concert is when multiple pianos perform on the same stage at the same time. PPA is invited, once again, to participate in the KPMF Monster Concert. We had quite a few students participate last year and they had a blast! I think there were 15 grand pianos on stage all at the same time.

Information on what participation entails is below. Please contact Mrs Skousen at christie@peerymusic.com if you are interested in participating by September 1. She will then put together teams of 3-12 pianists and choose repertoire for you. Memory is NOT required for this concert.

YOU MUST COMMIT TO ALL OF THE FOLLOWING REHEARSALS AND FEES IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE
Venue: San Jose State University or West Valley College in Saratoga
Guest Conductor: Robert Vandall
Entry Deadline: September 30
Rehearsal: First Rehearsal: November 20 (Sat) 5PM
Second Rehearsal: January 15 (Sat) 5PM
Dress Rehearsal: January 22 (Sat) All Day. Time will be assigned to each team.
Entry fee: $48 per young artist (~18) for 2 instructional rehearsals and a dress rehearsal by Robert Vandall and a Monster Concert.
The price includes one Adult ticket priced at $25 (early bird). This year, we will define group entry pricing with some discount.
A group organizer will receive complimentary tickets.
Repertoire: Robert Vandall’s piece or any piece for Duet, Duo, Trio by published by Alfred.
The music is required for rehearsals).

ENSEMBLE FESTIVAL
The PPA Ensemble Festival will be August 24 and 25. All students will have the opportunity to play at the festival. Habits students – your teacher will help you choose a piece from your Practical books that you can play with the teacher duet.
All teachers will be signing you up at your lesson so please let them know which day you would like to perform.

FALL SCHEDULE
PLEASE HELP US CHECK FOR ERRORS! We have posted all of the Fall rosters online. If you need the password to view the rosters or find any errors please email schedule@peerymusic.com.

If your name is not listed please fill out the RETURNING/CURRENT STUDENT FALL form (link is):
http://peerymusic.com/registration/returningcurrent-students-fall/

HABITS FALL ROSTER
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/fall-habits-schedule/

PLAYERS FALL ROSTER
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/fall-players/

SKILLS CLASS ROSTERS – for Players and Mastery students
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/monthly-class/

This could be my favorite event of the year! The PPA Ensemble Festival is August 24-25 from 6:30-8:30pm at Sherman Clay, 2030 Duane Ave in Santa Clara. It’s just off of 101. You can sign up for your preferred day at your lesson.

We are excited to hear you all play together and be amazed at what you have accomplished over the summer!

We realize that summer schedules are crazy and that might mean missing more lessons than you would like.  PPA takes care of this by offering unlimited extra and makeup sessions.  This applies to both Habits and Players students.

During Summer Quarter only – Players or Habits students can take OPEN or OUT spots on the Habits Swap calendar WITHOUT having to post a corresponding OUT.  This gives you unlimited extra sessions with a teacher.

For Habits students you can come multiple times during the week for extra help, or a supervised practice session.

For Players students this gives you a chance to have a private session with a teacher to practice or to help you with your Players assignment.

We have LOTS of OPEN spots.  So please take advantage of this great summer opportunity!

Habits Swap Calendar

How to Use the Swap Calendar

A PPA parent passed this article along to me about the importance of creativty. Here is an excerpt, with link to full article below. Worth reading.

NEWSWEEK ARTICLE EXCERPT
A fine example of this (whether or not creativity can be learned) emerged in January of this year, with release of a study by University of Western Ontario neuroscientist Daniel Ansari and Harvard’s Aaron Berkowitz, who studies music cognition. They put Dartmouth music majors and nonmusicians in an fMRI scanner, giving participants a one-handed fiber-optic keyboard to play melodies on. Sometimes melodies were rehearsed; other times they were creatively improvised. During improvisation, the highly trained music majors used their brains in a way the nonmusicians could not: they deactivated their right-temporoparietal junction. Normally, the r-TPJ reads incoming stimuli, sorting the stream for relevance. By turning that off, the musicians blocked out all distraction. They hit an extra gear of concentration, allowing them to work with the notes and create music spontaneously.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

SUMMER BREAK – COMING UP!
PPA will be on Summer Break July 5-17. No classes or lessons will be held during this time.

SUMMER PROMO – Still on!
There are two ways to waive your annual registration fee.
1) refer a friend that starts lessons before August 1
2) list 5 friends and their email address on your fall reg fee

FALL AND SUMMER ROSTERS
We are currently tracking two sets of rosters – summer and fall. PLEASE CHECK THE SUMMER AND FALL ROSTERS to insure we have registered you in the correct classes. We appreciate your help in keeping these accurate. Please email schedule@peerymusic.com if you find any errors. We appreciate your help in this.

All of the rosters are password protected. If you don’t know the password please email schedule@peerymusic.com

FALL FORMS
Scheduling for fall is in full swing. If you are NOT listed on the fall rosters then you HAVE NOT filled out the required Fall form which gives you a chance to choose your Skills class (for players), update your contact information and choose your parent role, along with reserving your fall time. Please check that your name is listed and if it is not please fill out the RETURNING/CURRENT STUDENT FALL form (link is):
http://peerymusic.com/registration/returningcurrent-students-fall/

CLICK THIS LINK TO CHECK IF YOU HAVE FILLED OUT THE FALL FORM FOR A HABITS STUDENT
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/fall-habits-schedule/

CLICK THIS LINK TO CHECK IF YOU HAVE FILLED OUT THE FALL FORM FOR A PLAYERS STUDENTS
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/fall-players/

SKILLS CLASS ROSTERS – for Players and Mastery students
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/monthly-class/

SUMMER SCHEDULE –
All roster pages are available on peerymusic.com, parent section, rosters and roles

HABITS SUMMER ROSTER
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/parent-info/

PLAYERS SUMMER ROSTER
http://peerymusic.com/blog/for-students-parents/players/