Mark is seven years old. He started learning piano three months after he turned six years old. He's loved his teacher, Mrs. Eldred, who has been coming to our house for four years now. This June Mrs. Eldred received the permission for Mark to perform at one of the public recitals. Normally, children take music lessons during school hours and musical instruments teachers just go from school to school to teach them. Only a few take private lessons. So this recital was mostly for students who take lessons through the school with a few different teachers.
Mark was super excited as this was his first official recital. He worked so hard for hours.
He really does love piano. It's amazing to me! It's really crazy for me to see how I didn't do anything special for him to foster this love and he simply enjoys it so much. I keep telling him frequently that talent itself is nothing but hard work pays off. And he sees it.
We know this performance is not perfect, but still think it's quite impressive for someone who had been taking lessons for one year and two months. This was the end of Grade 2 level in English terms.
And here is Mrs. Eldred and Mark. Oh, he will miss her so much. She was always so encouraging to him! She knew what motivated Mark and how to keep him on fire about piano. I just pray he continues to love playing the piano as we love listening to him.
Lyana.
P.S. Before Mark performed, the MC announced that this will be the last time Mark plays here before he moves to the US. At the end of the recital, the guy who sat in front of me came up to me and Mark, clearly impressed, and said, "You go show those Americans how to play the piano!", meaning to be very encouraging. I felt his pain inside as I replied to him (with my almost American smile), "Well, actually, we ARE American". And then I added something like, "But we love our straightforward British friends here".
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