Playing at the Senior Living Center

Caleb loves to play anywhere he can find that has a piano and will let him perform.

He was recently invited to come and play at a very fancy Senior Living center. They had him scheduled as the entertainment and had all the residents lined up in rows to listen to him while they had root beer floats for a treat.

Caleb came with a whole program list of songs. He played all his best songs that he has played over the past year and 1/2 in his recitals and competitions as well as a few modern ones he has learned on his own.

He did a great job and the crowd loved him!

Getting Ready for yet Another Competition!

Caleb has been having a pretty fun summer! He's been able to go on some fun vacations and road trips and even got to play the piano in Arizona for his Grandma Mary's church. He has played the piano for 5 different churches now and will play for yet another church this Sunday. He is quite in demand! Caleb just loves to play for people! It makes him so happy.

While the summer has been fun, it is almost at an end, and that means the big University's piano competition is coming! Caleb has been getting all ready to compete. He will be competing in different skills tests like "Quick Study", "Theory", and "Sight Reading", as well as competing with two different performance pieces.

He has been refreshing an older song that he will compete with called "Anitra's Dance" by Grieg. This one uses the pedal, so it is still a little difficult for him to reach, but he makes it work.

Somewhere in Time

Caleb thinks he is pretty snazzy in his little bow tie and suspenders that he found. His brother wore them once for a dance recital.

Caleb has been practicing some new sheet music. A friend of his really liked this song from the old movie "Somewhere in Time".

Competitions....The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

This spring, Caleb found a bunch of competitions that he could enter. This was going to be exciting for him. Before, when it seemed like there wasn't much for a kid under 8, this year he found 4 competitions that would allow an 8 year old, so we decided to test them out.

So far, he had a good time practicing up songs and even some success at winning in Park City. However, it was really interesting how he could do so well at one competition, but then not even be in the running at another. It wasn't something we could even guess on.

Sometimes the age groups would just be too broad with divisions such as "Elementary 6th Grade and Younger". We figured he didn't have much a chance there competing with kids up to 4 years older than he. But then he surprised us at Park City when he competed and won.

Caleb was excited when he found a competition a few hours from home that finally offered some "8 and Under" divisions, and then there was going to be a new local competition for ages 8 and under as well. This would be a real chance to win! Caleb was a very talented 8 year old we thought.

Well, we were surprised after 2 long competitions and competing with many different songs, that he didn't even place. What had happened? I guess sometimes it is just hit or miss. While we have been impressed by many other young talented pianists, we have seen the best mess up, or some new competition win with simpler songs. Piano competition is a tough world. Although with the younger kids, it seems as if Caleb was always playing more difficult pieces, but it didn't really matter. Judges look more on how the piece is played as far as dynamics more than how hard a piece was. We were finding that while Caleb was 8 now, he was still so much smaller than the other kids and his hands and strength just weren't cutting it. While he could play quite well, and hard pieces, he often couldn't play them as loud or reach the pedal, or play all the notes because his little hands can't reach an octave stretch while these other kids could.

Oh, well, no big deal, Caleb just liked to perform and he was having fun, and we were learning.

Caleb was having some great experiences. For one particular competition he wanted to play his concerto but his teacher couldn't accompany him. He was was lucky enough to enlist one of his favorite famous concert pianists, his idol, Josh Wright.

Caleb has made friends with Josh and Josh was nice enough to agree to work with Caleb for this competition. Caleb loved every minute of it. He felt like a star.

We didn't expect much from this competition as we had to ask special permission even to enter because originally it was only for age 9-13, but we got permission and they opened it up to "13 and under" instead. But still, we knew Caleb couldn't compete against 13 year olds.

While he did extremely well (we were so proud!), the other kids were older and bigger and another older boy played his same concerto and he could actually play all the notes and reach the pedal (and it was a big difference when you heard how it was supposed to sound with so many more chords and note stretches!) and so in the end Caleb didn't win.

He did come away with an Honorable Mention though!

Good for him!

As you can see, here he is with the winners:

He did well for such a young short little kid!

Summer Recital (Practice for Competition)

Caleb had a recital where everyone performed songs they were going to play at competitions coming up. Caleb performed his concerto again with his teacher, and then he also played a new song he's been working on; Haydn's Sonata in D major, 3rd movement:

Monster Concert 2011

Caleb got to participate in the University of Utah's Monster Concert.
The Monster Concert is a huge concert where they put about 14 pianos on the stage all at one time and then students perform on the pianos all at the same time.

This year's theme was Disney songs, and Caleb was going to play a song from the movie Fantasia. A lot of the songs incorporate costumes, so Caleb decided to dress up like Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer in Fantasia.

Caleb was going to be playing in the biggest song. It would have 27 students all playing his song at the same time. As he went to rehearsals, they saw Caleb looked pretty cute all dressed up, and he was a good kid, so they decided to give him some extra parts.

They asked Caleb to be part of the show opening and welcome the audience, as well as conduct the first song!

Here is Caleb with Cinderella and Belle announcing the show to begin:

Then he conducts the first song, "Be Our Guest".

Here is a little video of his conducting:

We thought he did a pretty good job considering he has never conducted before.

Then came Caleb's performance. He shared a piano bench with an older student on the end of the stage. Caleb was the youngest student performing.

They played the piece "Night on Bald Mountain" from Fantasia.

It was by far one of the best performances of the night. Here is the video:



It was a really fun evening and we can't wait until next year's concert.

Caleb Visits His Favorite Concert Pianist (besides his teacher of course)

Almost a year ago, Caleb met a young man named Josh Wright who he had seen and heard about on the internet and from what was called "Josh Wright Piano TV". He was at the Summer Arts Awards Ceremony when he first was introduced, and then later at the Summer Arts Winners Recital at the University of Utah, he got to talk with him some more.

Caleb so admired this young pianist. He had been playing piano for a long time, even when he was a little boy just like Caleb. Caleb wanted to be just like this pianist.

Over the last year Caleb began leaving comments on Josh Wright's facebook fan page and they began to comment to each other back and forth. Caleb watched as Josh became more successful and soon put out a top selling CD. Caleb saw that Josh was in several articles in the newspaper and had many pictures as well. So excited was he, that Caleb just had to go meet Josh again to get his CD and to have it signed as well as his newspaper clippings.

He was so happy to see Josh and to have him sign his CD. Josh told him that he had even gone out and bought a suit vest so that he could look as stylin' as Caleb.

What an inspiration Josh has been to Caleb. He is so talented and yet so grounded, humble and kind. If you haven't heard his music, you should check it out! You can see him on joshwrightpiano.com. Very talented indeed! Caleb hopes he can be as talented one day!