Monthly Notes

Welcome back to a brand new school year! I hope you all had a great summer. Our lessons will start after the Labor Day weekend, on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008. Please let me know if you have any questions or concern about the schedule.

The fees have increased to $40 for half an hour lessons, $50 for fourty-five minutes lessons, and $60 for one hour lessons. I am very happy that all of you have decieded to stay with me and I look forward to a wonderful school year ahead of us.

We will have one Nursing Home recital in the fall semester at the Carlton Willard in Bedford. Last year's recital there was a success and they want to have us back this year again. I will be giving out Christmas duets for everyone to practice. It was great last year from you to organize the kids' schedules to play with each other. I will try my best to have them practice together during their piano lessons. But, it is always great for them to get together and play together outside the piano lessons.

We will also have one studio recital in May. I am looking for a new space in Lexington this year and I will let you know about the exact date and location as soon as I found it out myself.

I will be teaching from Monday through Thursday this year, leaving Fridays and weekends for make up lessons. Last year we had a lot of missed lessons, which I hope to avoid this year. It is very important for the students to maintain weekly lessons. This motivates their practicing more and gives them better goals to practice towards. So, if you do have to miss a lesson due to a holiday or sickness, please try to schedule a make up with me within that week. I will try my best to offer as many make up lessons as possible.

I will be teaching on all Holidays for the fall semester. The only two Holidays that I will be taking off will be on November 27 - 30 for Thanksgiving and December 24 - January 4th for Christmas and New Years Eve. We will also be on vacation from December 13 till December 21st. So, there will be no lessons on these days. I will be teaching December 22nd and December 23rd.

Please take a look at our Calendar with all the dates for the outside of studio recitals and competition. Try to make it your responsibility to remind me about the deadlines for the recitals that you would like to attend; especially the ones that you can register online yourself.

I am writing to let you know that we will have our End of the Semester recital on Sunday, May 4th at 6:30pm. The recital will be at the First Church of Christ, which is located at 25 Great Road in Bedford. The church is located next to the First Parish church, where we had our first recital in January this year. The recital will be about an hour long. We will also have a rehearsal on Saturday, May 3rd at 6:30pm. The rehearsal will be about 45 minutes long. For the rehearsal I would like to have the students alone without the parents. This is an opportunity for them to "try out" their pieces and get comfortable with the piano and the hall. At this recital I will have trophies for the first three students who practiced the most this school year. I will collect their practice booklets a week prior to the recital in order to count all the checks and order the trophies.

Thank you for all parents who brought their children to the MAE evaluation in Natick last weekend. All of them played very well and the judges were impressed with their level of playing. I hope you had a good time as well.

The Bay State Competition will be held on Saturday, May 10th. The times for each student will be announced soon. They will be sending the times to me by mail and I will notify you as soon as I receive them.

I am very impressed with everyone’s practicing this year and all the efforts that were made by your children and yourselves. Thank you very much for bringing them to their lessons, spending time with them practicing and encouraging them to do well. They all did a great job!

I would also like to ask you if you could tell me your summer schedules. The summer lessons are very flexible. But, if you already know when you will be away or when you will take lessons, please let me know. I would appreciate it very much.

Since the End of the Semester recital is this early in the semester, I might organize a Nursing Home recital here in Bedford at the end of June. I will let you know once I have finalized all the plans.

What a successful Nursing Home Recital we had! Thank you all very much for organizing time for the students to practice their duets outside of their lessons; because I was sick for one week and couldn't practice with them. Since this was such a success, I will plan to have another Nusing Home Recital in the spring.

The studio will be closed from December 22nd till January 1st. The lessons will resume again on Wednesday, January 2nd.

However, we will have our next recital as planned, on January 6th at 6pm at the First Parish church in Bedford. The church is located at 75 The Great Road in Bedford. We will also have rehearsal on Saturday, January 5th at 5pm at the same place. This rehearsal will serve for everyone to try out their pieces and try out the piano. The rehearsal is only going to be for the students. So, parents will have to drop off their children at the church and pick them up in about 45 minutes. This will give students a chance to play for each other, get to know each other and prepare for the recital, which is going to be the next day.

Please let me know if you child can't make it to this recital as soon as you can, because I am already making the program.

Thank you all very much for all your Christmas presents. I love every single one of them!

May your Holidays be filled with lots of love, laughter and happiness and may you have the best Holiday ever. Happy Holidays to everyone!

We are going to have a Nursing Home recital on Saturday, December 15th at 3:30pm at Carlton Willard nursing home in Bedford. Everyone has gotten one Christmas piece to perform either alone or as a duet for this special occasion and it seems that everyone is enjoying it very much. I am very happy to see that almost everyone will be able to make it to the recital. I am sure we will have a great time and the residents will appreciate the music very much.

There will be no lessons during Christmas break from December 22nd to January 1st. The lessons will resume on January 2nd.

We will also have our student recital on Sunday, January 6th at 6pm. Please let me know if your children won't be able to make it. We will also have a rehearsal for the coming recital on Saturday, January 5th at 5pm for about one hour. I would love for everyone to be able to make it to the rehearsal, because everyone will be able to try out their pieces on the piano before the actual recital.

We are almost at the end of the Fall semester and I have to say that I am very happy about everyone's progress and practicing. Keep up the good work!

What a great start of the school year. I was very happy to see you all and continue lessons. Everyone seems to be motivated more this school year and I hope that it will stay that way. I know that it is very hard to fit practicing into your schedules when the school year first starts; but, I am very happy to see that all of you are trying your best to fit piano into your daily schedules. I was also very happy to see that everyone is having a lot of fun with their new pieces, trying to do their best. Keep up the good work!

We had some issues about having to move some lessons around this month as well as having some lessons cancelled last minute. This is quite normal for the first month of the year and I am very happy that the schedules have settled down by now. Please keep in mind that my schedule is full this year and that when lessons are cancelled last minute for a different reason than something urgent, I won't be able to make them up and will have to charge for that missed lesson. I keep my weekends open for makeup lessons in case I need to miss a lesson or if you have any emergency. I thank all of you very much who understood about me not being able to have lessons with you when my daughter had fever couple weeks ago.

Please check out our Calendar of Events, because I have finalized our recital dates and times and also where they are going to be. I would appreciate it a lot if you could clear your children’s calendar for those two days of the recitals. I tried to put the recitals when no one has anything scheduled. But, there is always something going on the weekends that can't be avoided. It would be great if everyone could participate and get to know each other. Also, please keep in mind that your children like to play in the recitals and show what they have learned this whole semester. The nursing home recital will probably be at the Carlton Willard in Bedford. I am going to look at the piano this week and will make my final decision by then. They only have an upright piano; but I have heard that the place is beautiful.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the recitals dates or times. I would love if everyone could participate in all recitals. But, if for some reason your children can't make it, please let me know in advance, so that I can plan the recital accordingly.

I hope you all had a great summer! I am very much looking forward to see you all again after such a long break. As you already probably know we have a new addition to our family. Our baby girl Maya Antonia Liu was born on July 11th, 2007 and we are very proud to be her parents. You can see a small picture of her below.

The fall lessons will start on September 4th, right after the Labor Day weekend. I am still waiting from some of you to get back to me about the final schedule. So hopefully I will have it ready and sent to you before the Labor Day weekend. Please note that I will be sending out invoices for the lessons through the e-mail the last week of each month, starting this month. This way everyone will know what the payment is going to be for the next month's lessons. On the invoices I will also include all the books that I might give to you. If you need to miss a lesson for any reason, please try to let me know before I send out the invoice to you. I hope that having the invoices send to you will make our lives easier with the payments. Please let me know if you'd like me to send the invoice to you in the mail rather than through the e-mail.

The recital dates for the End of the Semester recital in January and the End of the Year recitals in June, as well as the Nursing Home recital are still tentative. I am still trying to decide where to have the recitals and at what time they should be scheduled. I decided that they will be on a Sunday, so that we can use Saturdays for the rehearsals. We will have a rehearsal before both recitals in order for everyone to try out the piano and get used to the hall. These rehearsals will be for students only.

Please read carefully through all the links (especially the Studio Policies link, because I have added some important things regarding the parking situation and the things to be done while in the studio) and sign the Agreement of Terms form under the Studio Policies link. I would like everyone to sign it and bring it to the first day of lessons (even the ones that have already done so in the past would need to sign it, because the name of the studio has changed). If you have any questions regarding anything on the website please e-mail me and let me know.

I hope to receive pictures from you soon, so that I can post them all online. I will be posting them as I receive them.

Hopefully this website will be useful for all of us keeping in touch and having a lot of fun with it.