Any tips for college senior recital planning. What type of snacks did you provide? Did you send any formal invites out? Our son wants it to be very mellow and just close friends and family. But I would love to hear the range of experiences as we prepare for this in a month. YIKES>…in a month my baby has his senior recital. Seems like just yesterday I was on this board fretting about auditions and where he ought to go.
How did that happen so quickly? 
Congratulations! D’s college senior recital was similarly “mellow” - mostly college friends, music colleagues and immediate family. She and her friends were in charge of refreshments, although we funded them.
We’re off to her final recital for her master’s degree this weekend and I have no idea about anything other than the rep, although I know there is a dress and refreshments will be provided. So I guess you can put our family on the low-key or clueless end of the continuum!
Congratulations to both of you!
Formal invitations are a thing of the past. I’m pretty sure a page on social media such as facebook should suffice. I think your students best bet is to find out what is typical at his or her school. For undergrad, there was a foyer in front of the concert space where we were able to mount a little reception table with refreshments. But for grad, receptions with food were not allowed in the foyer (so I hosted a get together for her good friends and faculty at a local watering hole)
For my son’s junior recital, like Musica, we used a table outside concert hall. The different cheeses and the fruit tarts went over well, the meats not so much. The recital is placed on the conservatory’s events calendar along with the program. Plus, word of mouth through social media. His senior recital comes up next month, but we are leaving meat off the menu.
Congrats! For my D’s senior recital, she was able to “rent” a classroom near the recital hall. We had a very casual get together. Bagels and cream cheese, fruit and an assortment of cookies (of course some vegan). Coffee, water, san pellegrino flavored waters and at the last minute I grabbed a few diet cokes. My dad drank one of those and no one touched the others - a tough crowd! We also got a beautiful vase of roses in red and white (school colors). And a white paper table cloth with a red plates and napkins - just a simple way to make it festive. The classroom was kind of dirty - haha - it needed a good dusting! So I was glad we had the table cloth. It lasted maybe an hour at most but it was really nice. And yes, no invites. All the students do a facebook invite. It’s also on the music school website events calendar. And…I did also get her teacher and coach a good bottle of wine as a thank you.
For son’s junior recital this year, he requested a party at his apartment after the recital. We funded but did not attend. According to my credit card, it was beer and pizza. For his senior recital, we will be attending and have told him that we will do a “real” reception. Probably a dessert bar and drinks. That’s what we did for his high school senior recital. We hired a caterer who did a fabulous job. She did the set up, service and clean up, so we didn’t have to do anything. She even provided the paper goods, cups, etc. And gifts for the voice teacher (who also accompanied him and composed a special piece for him to perform) and piano teacher (son played a couple piano pieces).
It is very much a school culture thing. For DD’s undergrad they were a big deal and we used a classroom for the reception with food and punch. It was customary for small notices to be put up around the music school and the entire studio was expected to attend. For her MM it was very different. For that school no notices were allowed, There were no attendance expectations. Receptions were not expected for any of the degrees. We had a few of her friends out for dinner afterwards.
Singersmom07 beat me to it- yes, it really depends upon the school. For undergrad, the school put up the notice on the web site and her name was on the scrolling board in the lobby of the building on the weekend of the event. Her studio and a lot of friends attended, as well as the VP faculty- and that was for her junior and senior recitals. We hosted a luncheon after the first and a dinner after the second for her close friends.
When it came to the MM recital, that school posted recital info on line and in the school and I was quite surprised at the large number of students who showed up! She was TA/Opera Admin so she had a lot of contact with not only both grad classes but also the undergrads there and they came out in force, as did most of the VP faculty. We went out for drinks and dinner afterwards, mixing her friends with our family members who had flown in for the weekend and had a great evening! She was always fortunate in the date she chose for this too, doing it in February before the “season” got really busy.
These things sneak up on you, so treasure the time. Do find out in advance if the school live-streams the event (some do now) and if they record it. If not, make sure that you have permission to do so and get there early to set up. Each school has different policies in this area too, so make sure to have your “offspring” ask!
Thanks everyone for sharing. Lots of interesting ideas. The recital is already on the schools web site and calendar. And I have been to other senior recitals because our son was playing and the main musician was our son’s friend. Some of those will be hard to beat. My favorite was one young very talented young man who is the child of two very successful musicians. At the end his father and mother joined him on stage and they did their own version of “Stand By Me”. WOW…For two years I have been threatening to join our son on stage and sing. Threatening because I can not carry a tune at all.
It really does depend on the school culture. At my daughter’s conservatory there is no space for receptions–and you need to clear out of the hall promptly because space is at a premium and others need to use it. Only very wealthy families can afford receptions at local restaurants because of the location. (Of course, there is no dearth of wealthy families who can do this, but for many families, just coming in to town to attend the recital is a major expense. A reception is out of the question.)
In our case, for minor recitals (e.g., junior year) it was just a small family dinner after. For graduation a $$lightly larger dinner with more guests including some friends. When she won a competition and soloed with the orchestra someone in our family graciously rented a hotel suite and brought in catered food, for which I will always be grateful.
@glassharmonica - I just started working part-time at Benjamin Franklin House in London and one part of my tour is to give a demonstration on the glass armonica!
Good comment about the recording. I forgot about that. My D had hers recorded by a student. That was really nice to show to her family that lives overseas. I’m sure recording was typical at her school. No live stream for the recitals. She actually used one of the recorded pieces for a summer program where they changed the program and wanted to see her sing something else. That something else was in that recording luckily.
Congratulations! I hope everyone has a great time. It is a major milestone.
I’ve also seen that customs vary by school. In addition to the reception rules and restrictions, even typical attendance is quite variable. Some schools have requirements to attend a given number of recitals per semester with sign-ins or some method of proving attendance. In these places, there may be a large number of students in the audience, especially close to semester end! Other places, attendance is limited to friends that happen to be free and family - and if you happen to schedule during finals time, friends may be able to come for the first half, but the second half of the recital the audience is sparse as students return to finish papers, study, practice for juries, etc.
I know one major school that during recital “season” has recitals scheduled regularly starting from early evening, 5 or 6 PM until 10 PM. As a parent, I was always very glad not to have to attend a recital beginning at 10 PM!
At the schools my kids attended, by the time they were doing graduate degree recitals many families no longer made an attempt to fly in to attend. I thought that was kind of sad, I’m sure family wanted to be there, but I don’t think the kids really cared by that point - after undergrad those Masters and post-Masters became important requirements, but there had been many solo recitals prior to that so the novelty had worn off.
" I thought that was kind of sad, I’m sure family wanted to be there, but I don’t think the kids really cared by that point - after undergrad those Masters and post-Masters became important requirements, but there had been many solo recitals prior to that so the novelty had worn off."
A lot of families, especially in VP, have already spent money to attend their students performances in the opera. I became friends with several of D’s MM compatriots. Several parents living all the way across the country who flew in for opera performances but not the MM recital. For three of them, i went to their kid’s MM recital and reported back that night with pictures and video. Luckily for them it was a department that was small,(only 32 VP students grad and undergrad) but MM recitals, even with absent family, regularly attracted attendance of as few as 25 and as many as a 250 people.
Now this is a shout out to future undergrads—GO TO RECITALS. Support your fellow students. Besides, you learn a lot.
How nice that you could do this for your D’s friends! It is hard for families and kids when the distances are great and it costs so much to fly in for a recital or other performance. Truth be told, to this day, I regret that my father and siblings were unable to attend my Senior recital - although Mom did make the trip and helped serve the reception! (I think she had a great time and stayed for an orchestra performance as well!)
Nice? Are you kidding? D had some AWESOME performers in her MM class. I wouldn’t have missed their recitals for the world.
In my daughter’s school you are not allowed to skip any class or rehearsal to attend a recital, so attendance can be scarce because everyone has conflicts. I think people really do genuinely want to attend, but often cannot. One workaround, to help fill the hall, is to program a chamber ensemble into the recital. Then theoretically you have a few friends for each player in the audience. Or you might end up with more on stage than in the hall.
“In my daughter’s school you are not allowed to skip any class or rehearsal to attend a recital, so attendance can be scarce because everyone has conflicts.”
That was the case in my D’s undergrad and grad. Timing can be everything. As mentioned earlier-- it’s always best the have your recital as early in the semester if possible. (And be aware of potential rehearsal conflicts).
The wonderful thing about going to your kid’s master’s recital is not just getting to hear them play (amazing to hear what she’s doing with a piece she had performed with what I had thought was perfection 6 years ago) but that you also get to:
- Walk several miles around town to find the specialized coolant that her car - parked in the free parking garage next to her work because she was afraid to drive it home - needs, even though the addition of that coolant will not make the "check engine" light go out, and she'll need to bring it in to the dealer during spring break anyway
- Shop for the casual reception food with her and discover how her tastes have changed
- Give the kid a full blown panic attack by doing those two things the night before the recital
- Invite her to shower in your hotel room because her apartment building has had a mysterious plumbing problem for the last several days and she hasn't been able to use the bathroom, let alone shower, at home for way too long
- Bring her leftovers from your lunch when you pick her up to drive her and the dress and the food to campus, and noticing that this now doubles the amount of food in her fridge
- Get to meet her teachers and friends, and celebrate with her afterwards.
- Dat cat. :)
- Have a double vision moment when you see your mature adult child on stage in a beautiful dress making music that you can't even believe and at the same time seeing the four year old and eight year old and twelve year old and eighteen year old and (well, you know)
@Stradmom ^:)^