The last month has flown by. Between Christmas parties, concerts, travel, and spending quality time with friends old and less old, I haven’t had time to blog! I’ll try to give a brief update of all the Christmas events at BFA.
Christmas Banquet (in November) is a chance for students and staff to dress up and eat a nice meal together. Guys are impressed by the girls’ hair…
Orchestra Christmas Party – All the orchestras met together to eat pizza, watch the original Grinch movie, exchange white elephant gifts, and play sculpting charades.
Emily and I got a Christmas tree from a farm in Sitzenkirch. We picked out the 10 year-old tree and the farmer cut it down for us!
Some staff members had a Pinterest Christmas Party to share recipes and enjoy some good food.
Nursing home – the High School Orchestra played at a local nursing home. Vivaldi’s Winter was the highlight!
Emily and I had a Christmas party for our small group. The girls decorated our Christmas tree, made gingerbread cookies, cut snowflakes, watched part of the newer Grinch movie, and did another white elephant gift exchange. It was a blast!
Paper snowflakes from the small group party decorate my office:
Kandern’s Christmas market was smaller this year than in years past. It was only open one day before I left. Emily and I went and roasted bread on a stick, then sang Christmas carols by candlelight.
The last Friday of classes was entertaining. There was hot chocolate before school, kids wore pajamas to class, the song “Friday” was blasted over the intercom between every passing period, and a couple students gave the announcements. Orchestra practiced in the auditorium to get ready for the Christmas concert. It was a convenient place for a Christmas tree photo!
On that Saturday, the entire school went to Freiburg to do Christmas shopping at the Christmas Market downtown.
Christmas Concert day finally arrived. I took up 2 chairs with all my stuff! The concert went really well. Marit’s beginners had great posture and have learned a lot in a semester! Guitar class played comical selections such as Rudolph and Feliz Navidad. One of my students had the entire audience in stitches when she told the story of Rudolph. The Intermediate Orchestra has made lots of progress, especially since lots of them were beginners last year! High School Orchestra had a more mature sound and wowed the audience by playing Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ from “The Four Seasons.” You can see part of the High School Orchestra’s performance here.
The night before I flew out, Kara Stuckey gave a masterclass for the students. Kara is the daughter of Peggy Stuckey, the previous string teacher at BFA. A friend of hers also gave a talk on string quartets and explained Rondo form in a creative way. It was an instructive and enjoyable evening.
Thursday morning, December 15, I took a picture of the countdown board and headed off for home!
