Caleb loves playing the piano, but he also likes to compose some of his own music. Now he is still pretty amateur, but he has written 3 of his own songs for piano which have all won at his school arts contests each year. He also wrote a little song for both piano and violin to play with his sister in which he won second place in a composition competition in Park City.
Recently, he tried something else.
A friend asked if he and his sister would come and play a particular church song for her during her church lesson. When Caleb looked at the song, it was a little too "simple" for him. She wanted him to play a song and have his sister play with him on violin, so he looked at a violin arrangement with piano accompaniment in his sister's violin book, but he thought it was too simple as well.
He loves a local composer/arranger named Aaron Waite who arranges church hymns and children's songs. He found a fancy little arrangement of the church song by him that he liked, but it did not have a violin part to go with it. So, Caleb decided that he could just write his own little arrangement for violin to go with Aaron Waite's piano arrangement. And, he did this all the Saturday evening before he and his sister were to play it at his friend's church the next morning.
Amazingly enough, Caleb created a cute little violin part that his little sister could pick up overnight. How proud he was to be able to upload this video where it could say it wasn't just arranged by Aaron Waite, but that the "violin part was arranged by Caleb Spjute". Also so excited he was when Aaron Waite himself heard the arrangement and posted on Caleb's page that it was "very very VERY cool!"
Caleb is still learning as a composer, but arranging music might be his new found talent. Here he is with his sister performing Aaron Waite's arrangement of a song by Mildred Tanner Petit and also arranged by Caleb himself!
Caleb had a school "Wax Museum" toward the end of the the year where he was supposed to pick a famous person in Utah history to dress up like and give a little monologue. While they suggested all these regular Utah famous people in history, Caleb wanted to pick someone a little more unique.
He chose to be Grant Johannesen, a famous concert pianist who was born in Utah.
As he learned about Grant Johannesen, it turned out he was a lot like Caleb. Johannesen had started piano around the age of 5 when his next door neighbor, a piano teacher, discovered him. She had heard someone next door "copying or imitating" her practicing, and so angrily she went over to demand who was making fun of her, and it was a little 5 year old boy that would listen to her play and then copy it on the piano himself. Johannesen went on to do many great things and tour all over Europe performing with some of the greatest orchestras.
Caleb dressed up in his suit and tails and although he wanted to have a better prop, they wouldn't allow him to have anything as big as a real sized piano, so he improvised and brought a little keyboard.
Caleb did a great monologue and we were proud of him for not only doing a great job in school, but for really following along Johannesen's footsteps in his own life of learning and loving the piano.
Caleb performed in his Elementary School Talent Show this month. There were about 25 kids performing, including his sister, and he was very last to go on stage.
He wanted to play Jon Schmidt's "All of Me" for the performance. To help him practice, he uploaded Jon Schmidt's mp3 of the song, but soon found out that the way Jon played it on the mp3 was a little different than what the actual musical score had written. Hmmmm......Caleb wanted to play it the way Jon Schmidt played it on the mp3, so he listened to it a few times and made the changes in the music.
So, here he is at the school talent show performing the "modified version" of Jon Schmidt's "All of Me".
Caleb's family was asked to speak in church, but when they say "speak", Caleb thinks "play". So, Caleb spoke AND played the piano. He played the piano 3 times. Once to accompany his older brother singing, once to accompany his younger sister on violin, and once just alone in his own piano solo. What a day it was!!!
You can check out his brother or sister on their blogs, but here is what Caleb played; another beautiful arrangement by Aaron Waite, "Oh, Let Us Rejoice":
One thing to note---Caleb found this arrangement just 2 days before Sunday, so he had only those 2
days to learn a brand new song to perform. He did a great job!
It's Spring time, and that means lots of competitions! Caleb traveled down to Logan, Utah for a piano competition. This one he enjoys quite much, not for the actual competing, but because they have a big music carnival where you can play games and win prizes.
Caleb played lots of games to win tickets and then turn in for prizes, mostly candy.
He had fun posing for pictures outside in between performance times.
The competition was held at Utah State University. It had lots of interesting sculptures outside.
Caleb competed in 5 different categories. He was one of the younger ones, and we felt he did pretty well. He was playing some pretty difficult pieces for a 9 year old, but as we came to learn later, the judges didn't really like that he was a young boy playing difficult pieces. They seemed to want those pieces left for the older kids.
Anyway, in the end, Caleb did manage an Honorable Mention in the category of Impressionist Piece for playing Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk. This was impressive, as it was a competition for kids up to 14 years old, and there were 2 other kids also playing the same piece as Caleb.
Here he is on stage accepting his prize:
As you can see, the other kids were quite older.
Caleb had a great time and wants to go again next year.
The morning after Caleb had a spectacular evening playing with an orchestra, we packed all up and headed to Park City, Utah to compete in the Con Brio Music Festival.
Last year Caleb had won 1st place in the Concerto Competition in the age group above his, and to no surprise, this year he did it again!
Caleb won 1st place Concerto!
But, not only that, he won 2nd place in the solo competition,
Best Romantic Piece,
and
2nd Place in Music Composition!
He won 2 certificates and 2 trophies!
The composition he wrote was for both violin and piano. He made it easy enough so his sister could play it with him.
He called it "Jewelia's Song".
Here is a video of them practicing before competition:
Jewelia came with Caleb to the Awards Recital to help play his composition.
It was really a simple little song, but the audience loved it.
They also asked Caleb to play his Concerto and Bach's Invention Number 8 for the recital. So Caleb played 3 different times for the ceremony!
It is early Spring and pretty much Caleb was just waiting until the end of March where he would have his annual Con Brio competition in Park City, Utah. Not too much excitement, but then all of the sudden, out of the blue, his teacher sends a text to ask if Caleb would be able to perform the concerto he was working on with the University orchestra in a little over 2 weeks time.
Woh. He had his concerto memorized, but he hadn't really been working on it, and he didn't have a cadenza leaned (the end solo part of the concerto), and woh, this was only 2 1/2 weeks away. Could this even happen?
There were 7 other kids (all older, from ages 10 to 17) who had been asked to perform, and yet some of these kids had been working on their concertos for almost 2 years! Caleb had only started working on this concerto since after his arm surgery, so maybe it had been a couple of months, but not consistently.
This was a big decision, and there were some costs of some sorts to pay for orchestra, a suit for Caleb, time, preparation.....stress.....the worry that this was a short notice and could Caleb really do it?
Should we let him do it? Should we come up with the money? Was it worth it?
Really, playing with an orchestra is a huge opportunity. As we researched, we found that there were many accomplished pianists who may have won competitions over the years but had never had the chance to play with orchestra. Here Caleb was only 9 years old, but this was a huge opportunity and who was to say if he would have other chances in the future?
So, we decided to do it. Caleb was a little nervous about the idea at first, but after talking with his piano teacher, he seemed very excited.
He prepared the next 2 weeks. He worked very hard. He got special permission at school to practice everyday after lunch on their piano in the lunchroom.
His mom freaked out a little when they were coming up with a new cadenza the night before the rehearsal that Caleb had yet to learn and memorize. His teacher just laughed and said, "Chill out! We're musicians here!"
The night came to rehearse with the orchestra. He had met with the conductor the week before, and now he had one night to rehearse his concerto in a small 15 minute time slot and that was it.
He was extremely nervous, as he had never played with an orchestra before. Caleb has always been a very distracted pianist and will often look at everything else besides the piano when he is playing. We had told him to stay focused and not to look at the violinists or out into the audience while he played, but it came to mess him up, when the conductor started the orchestra and it came to his part the conductor motioned him in but Caleb did not start. He was so much concentrating not to look anywhere else, that he missed his start. Well, that, and he had never heard the orchestra part as how he is to start. It's a little different than when his teacher plays. So as he failed to come in, the orchestra all laughed. This made Caleb even more nervous. We knew Caleb would be alright, he always performs well under pressure.
Caleb's teacher was there and she was helping him out and being very reassuring.
At home, he was very excited when his new suit came in the mail that evening. It even had tails!!
The night of the concert came and Caleb was very excited.
Some of his biggest fans were already there to support him!
He was to wait backstage until he performed, but he was number 5 to go on stage, so we volunteered his dad to keep him occupied until it was time. You never know what a 9 year old could do backstage waiting all that time.....
We did get some nice pictures on stage before it began.
The concert began and we were all so nervous waiting for the 5th pianist to come out. It finally came, and out came Caleb to perform!
Here is the amazing performance we got to witness:
He did so well! There were a few spots Caleb had continued to forget during practice, but he remembered them all and did amazing! What an awesome accomplishment for a 9 year old boy!
We tried to get a picture of all the performers over the audience's standing ovation!
See little Caleb was the smallest as always.
Afterward, he got to meet a huge fan club!
This isn't all of the group. He even had some teachers from school come to see him.
His piano teacher was so proud of him!
He even signed an autograph!
So exciting and wonderful it was! It's just so amazing and awesome that he was able to be a part of it, and he did so well! And as we just noticed, this is Caleb's 100th blog post! How fitting to play with orchestra for his 100th post!
Thank you so much to all the friends and great family support to allow Caleb to have this wonderful opportunity! We love you!
