EAST SAN FERNANDO VALLEY   MTAC
 
APRIL 2012 NEWSLETTER
 
Greetings to all of our friends and colleagues at the ESFV MTAC.  We’re excited to have you with us as we look forward to meeting more and more of our members in the upcoming months.   It’s been a busy first quarter of 2012 and the following newsletter will recap some of the major past events and also look forward to some upcoming branch activities. While no formal minutes will be presented here, most of the information is taken from the recently held March 26th board meeting.  Right up front I wanted to remind everyone that we now have a fully functional and extremely useful website at mtacsfev.org where you can find all important upcoming dates of events, information on CM, festivals, recitals and competitions, a directory, and many other helpful items.  Please click on the link above and visit our site! As always, I wish to remind everyone that if you have any musical events you’d like advertised here, I’d be glad to do it for you.  Just send me any fliers or letters (as you’d like them presented on the newsletter) to ah9653@aol.com
Thank you all for your continued support of our branch,
 
ArjangHedayati
Recording Secretary
 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENTS
 
Many thanks are due to some of our members for the incredible work they’ve done this year!
 
We begin with Sharon Shaheed and Phoebe Simpson, for once again doing an outstanding job on the Certificate of Merit.  They were extremely professional, supportive, communicative with helpful emails before and after the event, and very organized.  We are very lucky to have them!
 
Many thanks to Francine Prancost and Joyce Osborne for chairing CM as well.   They did a wonderful job.  Thank you Francine for being so generous and allowing students to use your home and saving the branch money.  We know that this is Joyce’s last year chairing the event and wanted to thank her for all of her work, especially as she chaired for two separate branches.  Thank you both for all of your hard work!
WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT CM MADE $1900 THIS YEAR!
 Finally, concerning CM, we hope to use LAVC for all instruments next year.
 
                                             
Many thanks go out to Ed Grossman for both instituting and chairing the beautifully run, 1st Annual Classical and Romantic Festival.  Ed did a fantastic job organizing and running the event, the kids played beautifully and were very happy with the feedback from the judges, and importantly, many of the teachers of the participating students felt that their kids played much better at CM as a result of preparing for this Festival. 
Unfortunately, while we were hoping for and expecting a very large turnout, we were somewhat shocked to see that there were only 14 students, especially since just about all of our students play music from these eras.  We want to remind the teachers who may not know that a Festival is a chance for students to share their talents and get helpful comments from very good judges.  It is not a competition.  It helps students on many levels, not least of which is preparation for the CM.  If we don’t get more participants next year, we may have to sadly cancel this event, so please try to plan ahead and involve your students next year.  That said, thank you again Ed for all that you did.
 
 
 
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER TO OUR TEACHERS
 
Recently, we’ve had some issues with professionalism and accuracy in terms of filling out forms for festivals.  We expect our students to pay attention to details when it comes to these things and we should hold ourselves to the same expectations.  Many forms have had mistakes on them, many are incomplete, and so on.  As examples, we have had pieces labeled as “songs” which as you know are not the same things.  After the K. number for a Mozart piece, someone had entered “Haydn”…and so on.  Let’s all try to be as accurate as possible to help with the chairs who freely dedicate their time to running these events.  Thank you!
 
 
THE 3RD ANNUAL FUNDRAISER CONCERT
 
Many thanks to all the participants of this wonderful event, which raised $1160 for scholarships and our branch.  It was a wonderful concert, and excellent performances from our teachers.  We wanted to thank Paul Pitman and Dilara Khalilova for their tremendous job organizing this concert, and also the Valley Presbyterian church for allowing us to hold the concert in their beautiful hall. We hope to have an even bigger turnout next time.
We’d like to mention the names of our devoted members,    Rita Hovanesian, Regina Verteym and Janet Kaplan. We couldn’t run our concert so smoothly without your help.
Congratulations to the fine musicians of our branch: 
Mark Richman
Bang-Eunn Lee
ArjangHedayati
Paul Pitman
Roger Eshlemann
AraksiaNazlikian
DilaraKhalilova
Tracy Saliefendic
Maya Agasarian
Laura Halladay
 
 
IMPORTANT REMINDERS!
 
The Bach Festival and Scholarship Competition are coming up soon.  Please use the hyperlink above at the beginning of this letter to visit our website and gather the relevant information.  Students can find guidelines and any changes that have been made.  Also, because the categories of the Scholarship Competition have changed, winners from last year may participate this year again. 
 
 
Finally, our next meeting on Monday morning May 14, will be the annual teacher’s performance and nomination meeting.  We really encourage teachers to participate and share their talents with us.  
The Planning and Officer Installation meeting will be at the end of June, and we will keep you updated of course.
   
 
CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT
 
Please see attached file for actual flier
 
Sunday, April 29, 2012 4:00 p.m.
Featuring Dr. Paul Pitman, piano
 
Sonata in A Minor, D. 537,  Sonata in B Major, D. 575, Sonata in G Major, D. 894
 
First Presbyterian Church of Encino
4963 Balboa Boulevard Encino, CA 91316 (818) 788-1147 www.firstpresencino.com
 
Suggested donation of $12, students $6
 
 
Wishing you a Happy Passover and Happy Easter!