– Director’s Notes: September 2020 –
Dear friends of Music,
Summer greetings from Fruitdale Farm! I hope you’re all really enjoying this gorgeous weather!
We are finding it a little challenging to plan for our fall musical activities with the shutdowns still in place for Phase 2. I am beginning to do online zoom classes and rehearsals for Mount Baker Youth Symphony and Fidalgo Youth Symphony. See above for the schedules. Because Mount Baker Youth Symphony is smaller I will include woodwinds and brass in the rehearsals for Monday nights as needed. However on Thursdays I will just be doing Violins and Violas for September, and in October I’m going to set up woodwind and brass online rehearsals through the zoom meeting format. It will be fun and innovative!
We will prepare music for upcoming concerts in a format similar to master classes where the teacher will play and then students will answer with the same phrase, either one at a time or together if we can figure out the time lapses. In any case it will keep everyone working hard on their techniques and when we resume our joint practicing at our normal locations, your advancements and the musical quality will be even better, and thus more exciting! No registration for the Youth Symphonies is needed at this point. We will wait until we can enter our church locations, and then we could have official registrations. What I would like from you now is one check per month of $32 to cover the cost of the instruction for the Zoom sectionals and rehearsals (or you can pay me directly on Venmo – just use this email: sharynpeterson@hotmail.com)
I am eager to hear you play! Please keep up your private lessons with serious diligence in your practicing. Zoom recital for Sharyn Peterson will be on September 26 at 2 PM in the afternoon. I will send out a link to all of my private students. If anyone else wants to listen in let me know and I’ll send you the link.
With joy in music making,
Peterson Conservatory Director,
Sharyn Peterson
– See Full September Museletter
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P.S. A big heartfelt thank you to all of the friends who have brought food, sent cards, and even visited Malcolm after his open heart surgery two weeks ago. He is slowly recovering and happy to be here! He sends his grateful thanks to each of you.
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– Director’s Notes: June 2020 –
Dear friends of Music,
We apologize for the lack of performance opportunities for our students! Right now it’s a little bit difficult to know what would be allowed as far as groups performing in public. So we are concentrating on maintaining and improving skills through online lessons, and signing up new students to register for in person and online lessons in September. We plan to do some chamber music workshops in the late summer, but of course that depends on what phase of the Covid recovery is in operation at the time, so stay tuned. Students please let me know if you were interested in joining a chamber ensemble workshop and performance this summer. Then we can have our plans ready as soon as we are given the go ahead. I am so looking forward to actually working with you in person after this long stay-at-home time.
A word about the protests happening all over the country and the world: we at Peterson Conservatory are in heartfelt sympathy with the peaceful protesters. We lament the damage to personal property, and we pray for improved social and cultural outcomes in the near future!
Warm regards,
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full June 2020 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: May 2020 –
After the governor’s announcements Friday, it seems we will have to increase our level of creativity and productivity in order to stay engaged in musical pursuits at home during the month of May. Although disappointed, we are holding steady with online lessons and coaching sessions, and looking forward to in person lessons as soon as possible!
Music is essential in mysterious, intangible ways! For brain development, motor skills, emotional expression, and collective and personal artistic achievement! I am trusting you each to increase creativity and purpose in your lives, as we move from Spring into our Northwest summer, with so many changes and challenges! I hope you enjoy the quotes below as much as I do!
Your Director,
Sharyn Peterson
“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.”
― Confucius, The Book of Rites
“My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.”
― Martin Luther
“Music is an outburst of the soul.”
― Frederick Delius
“Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss“
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”
― Pablo Casals
“Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life.”
― Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”
― Piotr Tchaikovsky
“The job of art is to chase ugliness away.”
― Bono
“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”
― Henry Van Dyke
– See Full May 2020 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: April 2020 –
Peterson Conservatory is continuing to teach private lessons during this difficult time. As we plan for the future, we look forward to being able to meet our students face-to-face, in person once again. Most of our teachers have chosen to do online lessons from either FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype.
Please be proactive and contact our teachers from the list below, since the next few weeks, though challenging, will be also an excellent opportunity to hunker down and practice music more than usual! Let’s press on to greater excellence and beauty – then may we all emerge from our seclusion like Monarch butterflies – onward and upward to greater vistas of accomplishment! (Though some of us may feel more like Punxsutawney Phil emerging and blinking in the sunlight!)
Our wonderful Dvorak concert has been postponed, obviously, and we are working with McIntyre Hall to find a new date. We have tentatively selected June 20 but that could change if quarantines are extended. Keep your eye on our FYS Music.org and MBYS.org websites. The five Senior soloists’ pieces will be woven into the upcoming MBYS and FYS concerts to come.
Stay safe and productive!!!
Warm regards,
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full April 2020 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: March 2020 –
March greetings! What a joyous privilege it is to hear the sounds of music being created in the rooms at our new location at Salem Lutheran Church. It’s such a pleasure to witness the growth and development of our many extremely talented and hard-working students. I look forward to our recital on March 28 at Fir Conway Lutheran Church, 2pm! I hope for a really good crowd of parents and family to support the efforts of our performers! Everyone is welcome.
Note also the other performances that are happening involving many of our students, such as the McIntyre Hall concert with the combined forces of Mount Baker and Fidalgo youth symphonies. During this concert the amazingly beautiful Dvorak G major symphony is the featured masterwork, followed by a really fun medley of Western movie themes.
Spring will be here before we know it! I am so looking forward to my garden again. I love growing musicians and fresh produce! My best to you all in your music making!
Warm regards,
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full March 2020 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: January 2020 –
Mr. Peterson and I are still feeling the glow of the excitement engendered by wonderful holiday concerts! We were both very impressed by the serious concentration and dedication shown by the members of both of our Youth and Junior Symphonies, which include so very many of our Peterson conservatory students. The techniques you are learning at your private lessons are showing great results in both solo and symphonic formats. Thank you all for a terrific holiday season!
We are very fortunate to have such talented, kind, and hard-working students – Mr. Peterson and I and the entire staff of the Peterson conservatory thank you for your diligence. It’s a joy to be teaching you.
One sorrowful thing did happen the week before Christmas. My lovely mother Gerri Allsopp passed away at the age of 96 years. I am designating her as the featured musician this month since it is because of her that all of this music has blossomed in my life and hence in the lives of our students! I am so grateful for the legacy of music making which she provided. Gerri was an active music educator all her life, even up until four months before she died. Her encouragement was invaluable for so many young people. Everyone remembers her delicious recital cookies which she made to reward and celebrate the efforts of her students and of the many professional musicians she hosted in concerts at her home in Normandy Park.
Please see Gerri’s bio on her obituary at Cascade Memorial.
Warm regards,
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full January 2020 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: December 2019 –
Winter greetings to all of you! This is the time of year when trajectories culminate in beauty, delight, and rewards. I’m thinking of all of the hard work that goes into the Christmas concerts that fill our weeks, and also the grades that your students have earned by their diligence. Please encourage each other to shed the stress and enjoy the camaraderie and thrill of music making! Let’s celebrate!
Warm regards,
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full December 2019 Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: October/November 2019 –
The busy season for our Fall activities and events has truly “hit”! So many places to go – so many activities we started in September which are already culminating in concerts, recitals, Homecomings, sports events, etc!!
I hope you are each taking time amidst the craziness to look around you at the incredibly beautiful trees and the terrain as it changes seasons. These visual treats are so inspiring, and they keep us from becoming too small-minded! When you choose a more creative lifestyle, there is joy to be found in each day! A basic reason for Peterson Conservatory’s existence is to help you find ways to develop your own personal creativity, to share with others. So, our staff and students are all moving toward happier lives, together!
Please attend the interesting and entertaining concerts we have featured, and support your musicians by attending the recitals in which they play solos. This is greatly encouraging to all of our students. Have a terrific October and November. We hope to see you in December at the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, in Mt. Vernon – it will be amazing!
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full October/November Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: September 2019 –
Warm Fall greetings! It is time to spread fine feathers, shake them out, renew our goals for finding and creating art and beauty!
Peterson Conservatory opens a brand new season of private lessons, Shepherd’s Chorus, Recitals, and Starry Night Chamber Orchestra performances. We collaborate with Mount Baker and Fidalgo Youth Symphonies, supporting Local organizations with our teachers and players, provide music jobs, and play for special community events.
Our new location at Salem Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon will enable our teachers to accept more students, (see teacher’s list below) and has handy access to Skagit Valley College, where our students may receive credit through regular channels and also Running Start.
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full September Museletter
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– Director’s Notes: June 2019 –
Greetings to all of our families and friends! It’s time to bloom in June, so keep practicing until the final recitals of the year as you have for our two youth symphony concerts, both of which were genuine watermarks – very powerful and inspired performances. Both overtures were very exciting and showed significant advancement from all parties: beautiful English horn and flute duet, beautiful cello – bass quintet, lovely Borodin Nocturne, spirited St. Louis Blues, wonderful Moon River. There were so many stunning moments it’s hard to cover them all here!
Please know that Mr. Peterson and I truly value your musical artistry and the contributions everyone made to make these two concerts so special. We are so proud of our many PCMA students who are involved in the youth Symphonies. One of the reasons we keep these symphonies active is so that private students can have an opportunity to play larger orchestral works and ensembles together! A creative artistic entity which also supports social needs is a huge benefit to all our lives.
Now for more news about our Peterson Conservatory: we are moving our school to a larger facility on Avon Allen road – Calvary Chapel, Skagit Valley, and expanding to include Fir-Conway Lutheran Church as our southern location. Both are convenient to Highway 20, and have large rooms and great parking, in a rural, not urban neighborhood. Schedules will be maintained as previously planned, with only a few exceptions, and also the summer schedules are a little lighter depending on your instructor. As a music Conservatory we are reaching out to students in the Skagit Valley and beyond, and both north and south facilities are enrolling new students now. To enroll, contact the instructors from our website pcmusical.org, set up a lesson time, and at your first lesson fill out a registration form, give to your teacher, and we will see you on stage very soon!!
Practice does not make perfect; practice makes progress. It is my joy to help enable and witness the progress of each of our devoted students.
Kind regards and best wishes for a fruitful and rewarding summer.
Sharyn Peterson
Artistic/Executive Director
– See Full June Museletter
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