Elliot’s stage // Fireflies Dance
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/42879249 w=590 h=330]
For the last couple months, Elliot has been taking an extracurricular Jazz dance class every wednesday morning at school. It is led by the school’s dance teacher—who does a wonderful job. The class culminated in this dance performance set to Owl Service’s “Fireflies” . . .
elliot’s stage // Piano Recital : 2012.01.22
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/35524750 w=590 h=330]
Elliot had her first piano recital in Tacoma yesterday—at University of Puget Sound’s Schneebeck Hall (where she also takes her weekly lessons.) Despite a bit of stage fright about having to introduce herself and her piece to the audience, she played wonderfully.
Elliot’s Stage // the big week
Sure, Elliot, you want to join the Glee club? OK, singing is a great skill to learn! Oh, and you want to be in the Peter Pan Musical? You bet—you love that story and it will be a fun experience.
Oh, wait—you mean your Glee Club recital and you Peter Pan performances and your piano studio recital are all on the same week . . . !!??
What did we get ourselves into??!
Yes, all of Elliot’s various activities somehow managed to culminate in performances during the same week. Fortunately, there was no ballet performance added to the list. We basically lived in the Veteran’s Memorial Hall where both her Glee club recital and Peter Pan performances were held. We also spent whatever time we could carve out in front of the Piano—along with several early mornings before school at her piano studio—practicing her pieces. And I have to say she handled it incredibly well (better than her parents!) She even got sad when her early morning duet practices were over . . .
And before you grandmothers and great grandmothers and other “loving worriers” out there worry—she also got a lot of free play time. Perhaps not as much as usual, but still some. And lesson learned: find out when performances are before committing to activities!
Below are photos and videos from Elliot’s big performance week.
piano recital
featuring her first public performance of a song using both hands as well as her first performance of a duet (with friend Gabriella Sebastiani.) :
glee club recital
Elliot and her two friends Matea (center) and Jocelyn (right) by themselves on a large stage in a packed auditorium—fearless girls! :
Peter Pan
Elliot played a Lost Girl, The Bluebird of Happiness and a Fairy Friend and was joined in this production by her friends Kate and Gabriella. This is a memory she’ll always treasure—she thrived being back stage and bonding with the other kids :
Dancing her heart out at the cast party:
Playing with her congratulatory balloon at Taste of the Himalayas after her final performance:
Elliot’s stage // Glee at Sonoma Hills
Elliot’s Glee club recently had a practice performance at Sonoma Hills Retirement Home. This is Elliot’s first non-school singing performance, so we weren’t sure what to expect, but there was no sign of the stage fright that Sarah and I were (are) prone to. Instead, she stood front and center and happily, proudly, loudly sang her songs.
She received several superlative compliments afterwards and we couldn’t have been prouder!
Elliot composes
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/42061507 w=590 h=330]Not an uncommon sight around the house—Elliot loves to compose her own songs by transcribing in a string of notes as she made it up . . .
Thanksgiving // 2010
Meema and Dampa came down to the Bay Area and we all spent Thanksgiving in the city with Mary and Karson. We also got to see their new house in Oakland and their new dog for the first times!
Girls dance
Daddy is 33!
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/32976148 w=590 h=332]The Bears won, I played with my daughter and had dinner with my gorgeous wife at my favorite restaurant—it was a good birthday.
Recital, diner
harvest festival
As the first official sign that summer is ending (the weather certainly isn’t showing signs) came in the form of the Sonoma Community Garden harvest festival—kids swarming the haybale house, hobo music in the Fig Forest, local brews in jam jars, pie contests, harvest produce. Makes us almost willing to say goodbye to summer!
Friday afternoon in the park
On Fridays, Elliot has the afternoons off, which we spend at the Plaza playground before going grocery shopping.
wishing we were all in Solla Sollew
date night // Paul McCartney
As much as we love spending almost every hour with Elliot, we do require the occasional “date night” without her. My parents kindly subsidized one of these evenings when she bought Sarah, Mary, Karson and me tickets (great seats, too!) to see Paul McCartney. We grew up loving Macca, so it was a thrill to finally see him live—and it was such a good show regardless!
Click through for a couple more photos:
tickling the ivories
Last fall, Sarah was invited to a presentation by a local Suzuki-wielding piano teacher for parents of children at Elliot’s preschool. Sarah was impressed by the teacher, but we weren’t sure Elliot was ready for piano.
This sentiment changed a month later when we went home for the holidays and Elliot gravitated with great interest towards the pianos at both our parents’ homes. Seeing her wonder and delight at the twinkling black and white keys made us realize that it’s never too early to indulge a child in a passion for music.
So, returning back to Sonoma, we called up the teacher and said, “sign us up!” As luck would have it, the teacher needed some creative work done for her piano studio business and suggested we trade services. Before we knew it, Elliot was taking lessons and THRIVING. She’s taken to piano like a fish to water and revels in learning and performing. We couldn’t be prouder. We don’t know how long this will last, but we’re enjoying every minute of it . . . !
click through for more photos . . .
twinkle twinkle.
Elliot recently started piano lessons with a teacher who uses the Suzuki method. After only a few weeks, she’s learned to play her first song—with proper fingering and all!
Elliot comes alive.
This morning, Sarah and I were busy getting a few things done while Elliot would periodically show us a doll she’d “dressed up for the concert.” We didn’t think much of it—Elliot playing dress up with her dolls. Then the dolls started to line the hallway . . . and Elliot started dressing herself for the “concert.”
The next thing we knew, she was bedecked in boho rockstar garb and playing her equivelent of a one-woman-freak-folk-band. Above is some back stage rehearsal footage from her first concert.
elliot’s songbook: turtles + seahorses
[make sure your volume’s turned up!]
It’s not uncommon to find Elliot singing an improvised song. The other night, she was doing just that for Sarah while Sarah was tucking her in. I happened to have the iPhone and turned on the voice recorder to capture the pure magic.
[repost] michael jackson
Besides The Beatles, one of my earliest childhood musical memories is Michael Jackson. I listened to Beat It and We Are the World on the jukebox while eating pizza in the wooden booths at Round Table. I remember learning to breakdance (or, at least what I thought was breakdancing) in the second grade in a small school in a small town in the middle of California. I thought he was the definition of cool.
As an adult that childhood wonder and magic never fully faded and has been, in fact, renewed through my young daughter Elliot’s recent obsession with him. Below is an entry from several months back with a video Elliot and I made together as a tribute to our King of Pop.
(turn your volume up)
It all started so innocently. A little girl heard a little boy singing a novelty Christmas song. “Who’s singing?”
The answer to that question has resulted in three months of obsession with the King of Pop. The most common words to come out of Elliot’s mouth used to be “Please tell me a story!” That record has been broken by the sheer volume of “I wanna listen to Michael Jackson”s. In fact, she requests a Michael Jackson cameo in every story we tell. I made the mistake of speaking in the character of Michael Jackson during one of these stories. Now it’s expected.
We don’t give in to every MJ request, but when you yourself remember the magic of being little and hearing Michael singing We Are The World and, to this day, feel a thrill at the opening bass stomps of Beat It, it’s hard to say no. It has also provided a motivating reward for good behavior. Elliot and Sarah dance to Beat It every night before bed, provided Elliot helps clean up first (the choreography of this dance they made up can be seen in parts of the movie below.)
Yes, Michael has joined the ranks of Peter Pan and Henry & Grisha as her best imaginary friends. She’s often overheard playing with him and has several toys named after him.
Thankfully, she knows nothing of post Thriller Michael Jackson . . .
This all leads up to this last saturday, when Elliot asked if we could make a movie about Michael Jackson. So, I present to you her opus: Michael Jackson!
(I’m scared of windowsills and the rain, too–it’s an understandable fear.)
elliot’s playlist: sandie shaw + burt bacharach “(there’s) always something there to remind me”
The other day, I was driving Elliot to preschool and Sarah’s Burt Bacharach album was playing in the car. Elliot asked me to play her favorite song, without providing any sort of information that would help me determine which song that was. Other than repeatedly instructing that it should be her favorite song. Finally I went through the album track by track—”I think maybe it’s this one . . . no, not this one . . . no, not this one . . . I think maybe it’s this one . . . ” this finally ended on Sandie Shaw’s version of (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me with Elliot beaming and saying “YAH! that one!!”
Since then, we’ve virtually had it on repeat every time we’re in the car.
short: michael jackson
(turn your volume up)
It all started so innocently. A little girl heard a little boy singing a novelty Christmas song. “Who’s singing?”
The answer to that question has resulted in three months of obsession with the King of Pop. The most common words to come out of Elliot’s mouth used to be “Please tell me a story!” That record has been broken by the sheer volume of “I wanna listen to Michael Jackson”s. In fact, she requests a Michael Jackson cameo in every story we tell. I made the mistake of speaking in the character of Michael Jackson during one of these stories. Now it’s expected.
We don’t give in to every MJ request, but when you yourself remember the magic of being little and hearing Michael singing We Are The World and, to this day, feel a thrill at the opening bass stomps of Beat It, it’s hard to say no. It has also provided a motivating reward for good behavior. Elliot and Sarah dance to Beat It every night before bed, provided Elliot helps clean up first (the choreography of this dance they made up can be seen in parts of the movie below.)
Yes, Michael has joined the ranks of Peter Pan and Henry & Grisha as her best imaginary friends. She’s often overheard playing with him and has several toys named after him.
Thankfully, she knows nothing of post Thriller Michael Jackson . . .
This all leads up to this last saturday, when Elliot asked if we could make a movie about Michael Jackson. So, I present to you her opus: Michael Jackson!
(I’m scared of windowsills and the rain, too–it’s an understandable fear.)
short: Elliot plays music. Peter is quiet.
I found Elliot playing her xylophone in the hallway. Above is a record of her performance. Apparently it’s a Michael Jackson song? Sounds more like Philip Glass or Steve Reich to me . . .
(I’m glad she so carefully tuned the instrument before performing!)
Elliot’s playlist: Vampire Weekend “One (Blake’s Got A New Face)”
About this time last year, there was one album that was played nearly on repeat: Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut. Sarah and I enjoyed the afro-pop-paul-simon-ivy-leagueistic sound of the album, but it was really Elliot who requested to listen to it over and over. We even took her to see the band perform live at Ameoba in SF earlier this year. Just today, she was asking about them again and she wanted to watch some of their videos. One song, in particular, really made her smile: One (Blake’s Got A New Face), which we believe was due to her having a friend named Blake.
Sarah captured Elliot exposing Baby Rose to Vampire Weekend for the first time above, I’ve included a couple of my photos below the jump . . .
Elliot’s playlist: The Jackson 5 “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause”
Elliot heard The Jackson 5’s rendition of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause the other day and was totally taken by Michael Jackson. She asked all about him and we showed her a couple old Jackson 5 photos and videos. Now, all she wants to listen to is The Jackson 5 Christmas Album–and she gets upset when songs that don’t prominently feature Michael’s voice come on; “I can’t hear Michael!” By far, however, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause is her favorite, and she can often be heard singing it.
Yesterday, she was talking with one of her stuffed animals and said, “Michael Jackson is my best friend!” “NO WAY!” was Sarah’s response from the kitchen.
(There’s only room for one Peter Pan and Neverland in Elliot’s life!)
elliot hours 