<p>Yes, thanks to everyone who has posted here. I have taken notes from literally every post made above. I am learning a lot. Unfortunately, there is no local community of other parents of serious HS musicians that I know of – this HS is all about sports, and even kids that are interested in music are discouraged by their parents against pursuing it in college. So you ARE my community, and I’m very thankful that this forum is here!
What I have learned:
- D is making significant progress and being challenged – check<br>
- handle as many deadlines as possible myself, and ask teacher to let me handle more of them
- get several copies of a generic recommendation letter, or at least feed well-marked envelopes to him at the appropriate times
- consider working with more than one teacher
- be aware that beyond learning the pieces, D should be learning about how to keep old material fresh, how to mentally prepare for auditions (her lack of competition experience here worries me here), and not play material that is too far beyond her (that may be a tough one too).
It sounds like her repertoire is fairly on-target, with the memorized pieces from the five eras, the full sonata, the etude, etc. But in the end will she play them well enough to pull off a really great audition?? That may be the difference that the right teacher helps provide.
Thanks again to all. If any posters above have students majoring in piano, I’d like to know where they are now!</p>