March News: Welcome to Performance Season!

Hello Crescendo Families,

We are so excited about the upcoming festival season, and we are confident that our students will accomplish great things through their participation in the various performance opportunities coming our way! We hope many of you will be joining us in our upcoming Crescendo Video Showcase and the Sherwood Park Music Festival in April. These are both wonderful events that provide our students with public performance opportunities as well as the chance to receive valuable feedback from industry professionals. We look forward to many inspiring performances at both events!

It is our desire to see every student experience their own “personal success” in their music learning journey! As such, we work hard to ensure that someone from our team is at every single Festival performance to support our Crescendo students, even when your teacher may not be available to attend as we do have regular lessons that same week. We are also looking forward to our annual Video Showcase which is an opportunity for our valued students to “showcase” their hard work, talent, and performance abilities in a more relaxed environment. We have asked our teachers who they would recommend for this event and these students will be sent an email next week. We would love to have you all join us!

Your Video Showcase experience will look like this:

You will come at your scheduled time.
A videographer will be there, as well as one of our staff at each performance to support and encourage you.
We even give you enough time to do a “re-take” if needed.
Afterward, a quality video of your performance will be shared with you, your teacher, and our highly esteemed adjudicators.
Our top Video Showcase performances will be given prizes and will be recognized at our Awards Show! Students may either perform live OR present their Video Showcase video if they do not wish to perform.

We carefully select our adjudicators from a pool of individuals with high- end education and experience in music. These adjudicators provide students with valued insight and feedback as well as a final mark on each performance. It is always our aim to provide encouraging and motivating feedback that will help our students to grow as musicians.

Thank you all for your ongoing support and we wish you all the very best in your performance endeavors as we embark on the upcoming “PERFORMANCE SEASON” at Crescendo Music Studios.

As always, we welcome any feedback or questions you may have! Please do not hesitate to email or call us any time.

Warm Regards,

Dean and Leanne Cummings

Owners of Crescendo Music Studios

TEACHER FEATURE

Tessa Ruberry

Each month we like to feature one of our talented Crescendo teachers. This month's Teacher Feature is Tessa Ruberry.

Tessa has been playing and enjoying music her entire life. She started taking lessons at Crescendo when she was 5 years old and has been pursuing her passion for the arts ever since. She is thrilled to be teaching students as they embark on their own musical journeys and grow to love music!

Tessa is always eager to explore new music and she appreciates how different artists express their musicality. Not only does she play piano and guitar, she has also been playing the tuba in concert band for four years. She absolutely loves to pick up new instruments that advance her musical education.

Tessa is currently working to complete her level 9 RCM certification in piano and continues to develop her songwriting and composition skills.

In her spare time, Tessa likes to bake cakes, read books, and listen to podcasts. One of her favorite bands is Queen, and she absolutely loves to travel.

Student Feature

Luc Bourdeau

Here is a student performer who blew our socks off! Watch as our student, Luc Bourdeau performs at our last Christmas Recital!

To see more of our wondeful student performances, please click here.

FRIENDLY REMINDERS...

Let’s continue to help each other by taking the basic precautions. As such, we encourage everyone to please wear a mask whenever they have mild cold-like symptoms. If you are feeling unwell, please call us and we will be pleased to switch to a Zoom lesson or we can send you a video lesson.

We ask you to please, protect yourself and others by:

· Washing your hands

· Wearing a mask

· Sanitizing hands when entering the studio

· Covering your coughs and sneezes

· Practicing social distancing when possible

· Staying home when feeling unwell.

With the wet, snowy weather upon us, please remember to remove soiled footwear and leave it at the front door. Thank you for helping to keep our studio as clean as possible during the mucky seasons!

IMPORTANT DATES

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

March

Friday, March 3: Band Master Class 6 - 8pm. Students must be at least 13 years old and have a minimum of two years private instruction on their instrument. Registration required.

Monday, March 13: Piano Master Class for Grades 3 - 6. Hosted by Erin Craig. Registration required.

Friday, March 17: Band Master Class, 6 - 8pm. Students must be at least 13 years old and have a minimum of two years private instruction on their instrument. Registration required.

Monday, March 27 - Friday, March 31: No regular lessons this week. Crescendo will be closed for Spring Break - except for Kids Bop Spring Camp. Regular classes resume on Saturday, April 1.

Monday, March 27 - Friday, March 31: Kids Bop Spring Camp. A full week of fun for kids aged 7 - 13. Registration required.

April

Friday, April 7 - Sunday, April 9: Crescendo will be closed for the Easter Long Weekend. Regular classes resume on Monday, April 10.

Monday, April 17 - Saturday, April 22: Crescendo's Video Showcase!

Monday, April 17 - Friday, April 21: Sherwood Park Music Festival at Festival Place. Grand Concert will be held on Monday, April 24.

May

Friday, May 19 - Monday, May 22 - Crescendo will be closed for the Victoria Day weekend. Regular classes resume on Tuesday, May 23.

Click here to see the full year calendar

Looking for something fun for your kids to do during Spring Break?

Kids Bop

Spring Camp

Click here to register, or call us at 780-570-5699 for more information or to register.

Video Showcase

As a music school that encourages performances and sees a definite value in performing, we try to offer a variety of opportunities throughout the year. As an alternative to the Sherwood Park Music Festival, we are looking forward to our upcoming Crescendo Video Showcase. Showcase provides an opportunity for students to sign up and perform a prepared piece in the comfort of our studio. We will video this performance, and the video will be sent on to our highly decorated adjudicators to receive comprehensive and valuable feedback. Our top video showcase performances will be awarded and recognized at our year-end recitals. We invite you to perform one or more songs at our April Video Showcase. Any style of music is welcome and we provide lots of flexibility regarding the types of performance and music that is presented!

Click here to see videos from previous Showcases

Tree of Love Contest Winners

Trisha Thomas

FIRST PLACE for ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Kyssara Mueller

SECOND PLACE for ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Crescendo students performing at RavenWood 2022!

RavenWood Music Festival 2023

Friday, June 23 and Saturday, June 24, 2023

Crescendo Music Studios is on the same bill as Juno Award winner, Sass Jordan! How exciting!

Check out the lineup.

If you would like to volunteer, please email ravenwoodexperience@gmail.com

Check out RavenWood's website for more information.

Make practicing at home more fun!

Tonesavvy.com has a broad range of interactive exercises, for beginners to advanced students, that focus on specific skills including, note naming (sight reading), interval recognition (ear training) and rhythm. Click here to try a fun exercise to improve rhythm performance.

CRESCENDO IN PICTURES

BE A PRO: GIG BAG ESSENTIALS FOR GUITARISTS

Whether you’re playing at a local bar, a friend’s party, or even an open mic, it’s important to be prepared. Getting on stage in front of an audience can be nerve-wracking enough without having to worry about a guitar battery dying in the middle of a song, or a string breaking right before you go on. Have you ever arrived at the venue and realized it’s been a while since you trimmed your fingernails? It’s not going to prevent the show from going on, but it just doesn’t feel right and may affect your performance. And you always want to play your best, right?

Click here for the list of essentials

You're invited

to a Royal Wedding!

💙💍💙

Join us on Sunday, March 5th from 4 to 6 pm for a Royal Wedding Celebration with Cinderella and Prince Charming! Be our guest for the magical ceremony, stay for a delicious kid-friendly buffet dinner and dance the night away at the Royal Reception with all of your princess friends.

Guests will have an opportunity to meet the Royal Couple and other special princess friends too! There will be lots of photo opportunities and special one-on-one time with the characters.

Tickets are $50 per person and are available now. Click here to purchase.

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The Encore Music Foundation is focused on providing collaborative music education and experiences for underprivileged youth, and we're excited to be partnering with the owners of Origin Road in this endeavour.

The name "Encore" comes from our vision to help youth in our community:

ENgage with their passion for music!
COllaborate together to create music and opportunities.
REalize their artistic and personal potential through music.

Interested in learning more about Encore Music Foundation? Please click the button below to visit our website. We would love to hear from you!

Click here to learn more about ENCORE