Proud Mommy Moment

Last night was definitely a proud mommy moment. Christian had his first orchestra concert. I tried all night to upload these clips to Facebook for the grandparents who were unable to make it to the concert but after an hour of being unsuccessful I gave up. This seems like a better place anyway. Let me first tell you about the program Christian is in.

Mountain West String Academy (MWSA for short) was started 10 years ago by Dr. James McWhorter. A long time resident of Logan, Dr. McWhorter is an accomplished string player. He too is a cellist and has played with the Utah Symphony and the Boston Pops. He is a professor at USU and travels the country speaking and teaching all different kinds of groups and at universities and conducting orchestras for young people. He saw the need in Cache Valley for a quality string program for children. 10 years ago MWSA was started on a shoe string budget with 11 children.

Through generous private donations from many area companies and the support of Cache County School District MWSA now has an orchestra program in every elementary school, with 2 teachers and one aide at each and 400 students district wide. Children can register for orchestra starting in the 4th grade because the optimal age for learning a string instrument is 8-9 years old.

At the beginning of the year Christian came home with papers about MWSA. He BEGGED us to let him sign-up and try. You could see it in his eyes it was something he REALLY wanted to do. If you know Christian he has some frustration issues with lots of things. He gets so frustrated with himself and some situations he cannot be reasoned with. We have been told by a pediatrician he has some OCD tendencies and with age he has been getting worse. We were very hesitant to start an instrument. Especially a string instrument that takes hours of practice before you actually sound like you are playing something. We agreed to let him start and were bracing ourselves for many long nights. Christian chose to play the cello and for a one time $30 registration fee which included all his books, a one time $40 instrument rental fee, and $15 to purchase a music stand he was ready to start.

Guess what? The opposite has happened at our house. Christian loves the cello. He is not frustrated when he can't play it perfectly. He is patient and happy to learn and be taught. The cello has helped him, it's been a form of therapy in a way, and his "freak outs" have been far and in between. What a blessing! Guess what else? Christian has always been an excellent reader reading 3 grade levels ahead since 1st grade but math has not come quite as easy. He has not struggled per say but has been more of average B+ student and found math more challenging. After just a few weeks of playing the cello math came easy! It is a proven fact that when children start playing a string instrument their math and reading scores increase by 2 grades, so C to A. We have seen in happen here. At the beginning of the school year his teacher asked us to write down a goal for the Christian and the only thing I could think of was, "Christian needs to be more positive about math and become more proficient." Math is no longer an issue.

Christian attends orchestra for 1 hour each Monday after school, 1 hour each Wednesday morning before school and we pay $2 on the Saturday's we are able for him to go to a 1 hour "Cello Lab Class" at USU taught by Dr. McWhorter and a few USU string students.

Last nights program featured all 400 string students from across Cache Valley. 2/3 of them like Christian have only been playing for 2 months. The rest have been playing for 14 months. They are all 4th and 5th graders, 9-11 years old. When you consider the short amount of time these children have been playing it is pretty impressive. We were one of the VERY lucky parents to have our child on the front row last night where he could be seen. It was a sea of black and white and moving bows. We were also VERY lucky to get such a great seat. The concert was held at Kent Concert Hall on USU's campus, every seat was filled and it was standing room only!

These clips were taken with my digital camera not a camcorder. There is quite a bit of shaking so sorry. I was also next to Parker who Would. Not. Sit. Still. So there is even more shaking from getting bumped by him. They did play a couple more songs but for whatever reason they didn't turn out. I think it is hilarious how serious Christian is. His bowing is more than cute and watch his hand when he finishes his last "pluck" on the last piece.

Isn't he handsome? Look at his killer tie which I picked out for him yesterday at Dillards. His dad is in love with it too and if it was a little bigger would probably steal it. He also tied that tie himself with zero help. I am absolutely in love with this little boy. He is growing up so fast now. :) and :(