Matt Henry, one of our piano instructors, chose the Student of the Month for January. He chose Reem Sabha who has been taking piano lessons for seven years, and five of them have been from Matt Henry. She is currently an 8th grader at Shahala Middle School.
In addition to piano she also enjoys oil painting, fiction novels and alternative music. Her current favorite movie is New Moon (Team Jacob)! In addition to piano, Reem also plays cello and drums. Her favorite song is River Flows in You by Yiruma.
Reem enjoys piano because it takes a great amount of skill and has a lovely tone. Matt likes to challenge Reem with complex and difficult repertoire.
Matt chose Reem as the Student of the Month because she is highly motivated and loves practicing, performing and selecting very musically and technically challenging pieces.
Instructor Darrell Hunt hosted his annual Christmas Orchestra Concert Monday, December 14th at Cascade Inn in Vancouver. Cascade Inn is a retirement home, and it had the perfect stage and setting for a Christmas concert. There were two guest performers, Joshua Sprague accompanied on guitar and piano, and Wendy Hunt sang soprano for three songs. There were two orchestras that performed, and the audience was able to sing-a-long to some of the songs. It was a great event, and here are some pictures:
Getting ready for the concert to start!
Warming up! The crows is anxiously awaiting!
The beginning Orchestra is starting.
The beginning orchestra playing. Wendy Hunt singing with the Orchestra.
The beginning Orchestra takes their bow.
The Intermediate Orchestra’s turn!
They take their bow. The did such a great job!
Beacock Music would like to extend a special thank you to Cascade Inn for hosting the event! Also, thank you to the students and the parents for all of their effort and hard work!
Tyson Schmidling, one of our guitar instructors, chose this month’s Student of the Month. He chose a student of three years, Lauren Edwards. She is currently a 5th grader at Dorothy Fox Elementary School. In addition to guitar, she also plays piano. Her favorite song to play is Valse Lente.
Lauren enjoys taking guitar because it sounds really pretty. She enjoys taking lessons from Tyson because he has taught her a lot about the guitar.
Tyson chose Lauren as the Student of the Month because she has progressed through many stages and keeps Tyson on his toes in lessons.
If you are a string player- then listen up. Darrell Hunt is going to have his annual Christmas Concert on December 14th from 6:30-8:00pm. Last year’s performance was a huge success! We had over sixty performers last year, and this year is sure to beat it! There will be a beginning and an intermediate orchestra that will practice and perform. This Concert will have three practices, a dress rehearsal and a recital at a senior community center. Friends and family are encouraged to attend the concert, and refreshments will be provided.
If you are interested in participating in this event, please contact the Education Center at (360) 694-7134 or edcenter@beacockmusic.com.
A picture from last year’s concert, which held at Beacock Music, on the sales floor. It was a packed house! We can’t wait for this years concert!
During the month of November, Beacock Music and one the print music publishers, Alfred, is doing a special promotion. During the month of November 5% of all sales of Alfred products will be donated to the Second Chance Companions. Second Chance Companions is a non-profit pet adoption and referral organization dedicated to helping find deserving homes for animals in SW Washington and the Portland metro area who are homeless, or about to be homeless. For more information on Second Chance Companions, please visit www.sccpets.com.
Get a head start on your Christmas shopping and help a worthy cause all at the same time!
John Neumann has been taking lessons from Brad Davis for two and a half years. He currently attends Dorothy Fox Elementary School as a fifth grader. In addition to trumpet, John also enjoys politics, civil engineering, the Science Olympiad and the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Sousa Band. John enjoys music by Count Basie.
John started playing trumpet because he wanted to be like Louis Armstrong. Brad Davis is funny and he likes the same music that John enjoys.
Nick O’Donnell, one of our guitar instructors for private lessons and home school classes, chose this month’s student of the month.
Tim Madden has been taking guitar lessons from Nick O’Donnell for five year. He is currently a junior at Evergreen High School. In addition to guitar, he also enjoys playing harmonica and listening to the piano- which he hopes to learn one day.
Tim’s favorite book is Groovin’ High and his favorite artist is Thelonious Monk. He enjoys playing guitar because it has many styles and has a lot of potential for writing and playing music. He enjoys taking lessons from Nick because in addition to being a killer guitarist, he helps Tim work with different genres and has a very in-depth teaching style.
Every summer the Education Center holds a class for guitarists, bassists, drummers and vocalists called Garage Band. In Garage Band, the students learn how to play in a band. This year we had a beginning and an advanced class. They played all kinds of songs including Iron Man, Enter Sandman, Beverly Hills, Monkey Wrench, Beat It, All Along the Watchtower and many more!This year their concert was held outside, which was the first for this class. There was a great turn out, and the kids sounded great!Brenda O’Donnell, the wife of Nick O’Donnell, one of the Garage Band instructors, made a poster for the concert:
Our purchasing manager, Keith Dwiggins, was at the event and took some great photos.
They even had their name on the reader board!
It was a very good turn out!
No one wanted to sing by themselves, so they all sang!
Thank you to all of the students that participated in Garage Band and worked so hard to make the music sound great! Thank you to the friends and family that attended the concert and showed their support to the students! And finally thank you to Nick O’Donnell and Keith Abbott for showing the students how fun music is!
One of the Education Center’s string instructors, Darrell Hunt, held a class over the summer for all string players. It was full of students that take private lessons from him, students from his home school classes and students from our other string instructors. The theme of this orchestra class was songs from movies.
The concert took place right outside of Beacock Music, and the parents and children held up great in the record breaking heat!! One of Darrell Hunts students, Irene Melton, made the generously hired a limo to bring the students to the red carpet (yes there was a red carpet!) in style! The first group of students to play was dubbed the MGM Studio Orchestra, and they played Do A Deer and Edelweiss from Sound of Music, Narnia Lullaby from The Chronicles of Narnia, and the theme songs from Jurassic Park and Star Wars. The Paramount Studio Orchestra played the theme songs to Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Harry Potter and James Bond.
The show was a hit, and Beacock Music would like to again extend thanks to the parents of the participating children for their encouragement and support, to Irene Melton who made the event unforgettable and to Darrell Hunt for his exceptional attitude and enthusiasm.
Here are some pictures from the event:
Thanks again to Irene Melton for the red carpet!
The instruments waited in the heat while the kids took their ride in the limo.
What’s a Movie Madness Concert without some popcorn, candy and a traveling concession stand?
Friends and family waited patiently in the heat for the concert to start.
