Each Fall semester ends with a “Studio Recital” - really my way of avoiding conducting traditional end-of-semester juries and instead enjoying a public performance. It seems to me better for the students, who try harder to pull their pieces together, knowing there will be an audience, and its much more enjoyable for me. They do tend to be marathon concerts, but, after our pandemic-induced enrollment dip, I’d forgotten how long it would really be, now with eight performers each taking a turn. But the small audience stayed throughout and the students all presented extremely well. Here is a run-down of the proceedings.

We opened with Josie Stone, in a performance of music by Turina and Merlin (complete program at the end of the post):

Next up was Aleksandr Lapshin, with works by Bach, Regondi and Brouwer:

Nicolas Wakeman followed, with a performance of works by Bach, Giuliani, Turina and Domeniconi:

Nik Divall was next, with works by Piazzolla, Barrios and Assad:

Rio Manzanares then took the stage with works by Giuliani, Turina and Bustamente:

Next up was Sara Baunoch, with works by Milan, Giuliani, Mertz and Brouwer:

Grigor Ylli followed, with a performance of works by Bach, Giuliani and Domeniconi:

And, finally, to close our program, Damian Goggans played works by Bach, Giuliani, Tarrega and Tamez:

I was immensely impressed by the musicianship on display, and by the mastery of the material demonstrated by these performances. Bravo to all participants, and thanks for a great semester!! Here was the whole studio, right after the show: