John Fraley Piano Lessons

Welcome to the Christmas Virtual Recital for 2021! These performances help us close out a year that has been challenging, weird, hopeful, stressful, rewarding, and long. Especially long.

Links to each student performance are below. Please note: not all songs are holiday-themed! There will be video game stuff (Hollow Knight), movie stuff (Pirates of the Carribean) and classical stuff (a Beethoven Sonata).

Click on anything that looks interesting, not just the piece you or your sibling or your child or your grandchild played! Who knows, you might really like it. :)

BEGINNERS

Torben Forsman plays Jingle Bells. Torben has had six lessons! He's the brand newest student on the list, and has already learned three different Christmas songs, a Minecraft theme, and a TV show theme as well. 

Alastair Simmons plays Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. First Christmas for Alastair in piano lessons and check out how he already understands the importance of staccato vs. legato and proper rhythms. Great start for him. 

Lili C. plays Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Lili shows a ton of promise early on, and the sky is the limit for her. 

[PRIVATE LINK ONLY] Emily Jensen plays Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. I love that the video is zoomed in on her hands because you can see how much she means it when she plays. Totally adds to the effect. 

Caden Martin plays Frosty the Snowman. Caden is a born performer, full of creativity, who loves to dazzle his family members with each new song. 

[PRIVATE LINK ONLY] Olive Cochran plays O Christmas Tree. Olive comes from a background in violin so she's had a musical head start, but she's also brand new to piano, four months in. You'd never know it from this, her first recital.

 

INTERMEDIATE

Emil Margarint plays The Mandalorian. Emil has had a fantastic 2021 in which he moved from barely reading music at all to learning pieces that cover multiple octaves. Very exciting stuff. 

Violet Martin plays March and Russian Dance. Violet learns songs of various levels of difficulty quickly and is not at all intimidated by complexity. More students should be this fearless!

Grady Madigan plays Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Grady makes up themes for events in our lessons, such as entrances and exits and corrections. He loves cats. Grady is going to be on my good list forever.

Luke Severson plays Drunken Sailor (A Sea Chantey). Look at how much fun he has with it! We should all approach songs, and life, as Luke does.

[PRIVATE LINK ONLY] Zack Verner plays Carol of the Bells. Learned it in under a month, too, mighty fine work.

Lauren English plays Carol of the Bells. A real fan favorite, as you can see from the list. Lauren attacks it with pizzazz and panache.

Miranda English plays My Favorite Things. Miranda took the next step forward with a way longer, way more complex piece than ever before. And Sound of Music is very Christmasy, right?

Callum Morrison plays Carol of the Bells. Callum and brother Tate are some of my newest students, returning to piano after a long, long layoff. Both young men are proving to be hard workers, quick learners and a pleasure to be around. Looking forward to our collaboration through the years.

Tate Morrison plays O Christmas Tree and also God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. Two songs for a student who's already positioning himself as an overachiever? That makes sense.

Issa Freire plays Danse Macabre. This piece is full of challenging chords, key changes, rythm surprises, and all sorts of snares and traps throughout, and Issa manages to avoid almost all of those almost all of time. Pretty cool.

Feifei Zhao plays Russian Dance. She loves the Nutcracker and clearly it loves her back. Feifei's got a bright future ahead of her at this rate.

Simona Margarint plays A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. This is a major project that shows how far Simona has advanced in a short time. She's not even 10 yet!

[PRIVATE LINK ONLY] Luke Skelton plays Carol of the Bells. Look out for Luke if his 2022 is as productive as his 2021. 

Naomi Content plays Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Naomi got to experiment with innovative jazz sounds in this one, which should open up a whole new line of musical knowledge for her.

Joey Crouthamel plays God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. Joey's Christmas plans include a duet with his two-year-old cousin on drums and playing carols for the family. Very cool what a big part music plays in his life this time of year.

[PRIVATE LINK ONLY] John Skelton plays Russian Dance. As fast as humanly possible. Like they do in the real Nutcracker. 

Serenity Harris plays Silent Night. The harmonies in this arrangement are really intricate, and Serenity negotiates them beautifully.

Cate Harrington plays We Wish You a Merry Christmas: a Music History Tour. What an awesome version this is, as it takes... wait, no spoilers. Listen for yourself. Cate nails it.

Tai Kato plays March. Pay special attention to the middle part and how his fingers fly through it. It's so cool!

ADVANCED

Mimi Zhao plays Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. And look at how much fun she's having with it. Side note: Mimi also spent the fall learning Clementi's entire Sonatina in C, all three movements totaling eight pages. 

Annie Johnson plays Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Annie can always be counted on to be extremely expressive in her playing. Honestly it's just as important as hitting the right notes -- which she also does by the way.

]PRIVATE LINK ONLY] Lauren Jensen plays He's a Pirate from Pirates of the Carribean. This piece represents a major step forward for Lauren, with its advanced rhythms, speed and length. Enjoy!

Haydn Content plays Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Full of soul, too. Haydn understands. 

Mabrey Young plays Feliz Navidad. With her usual precision and mastery, unsurprisingly.

Lilia Freire plays Beethoven's Sonate Pathetique (second movement). Would you believe it if I told you Lilia learned this five-minute piece in the space of six weeks? You should. It's true. And mighty impressive. 

Madeleine Garrison plays Jolly Old St. Nicholas. As always, make time to listen to Madeleine. This very cool jazzy arrangement is full of left-hand goodies and surprising ryhthms. One of my favorite Christmas pieces in recent memory.