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My grandson is graduating high school this month and a few of his classmates have announced "senior recitals". These recitals are not at the school or organized by the school but are apparent;y organized by the student (and parents I assume). Is this a common thing? I had never heard of this at the high school level but my personal experience with high school is 60 years old.

Bob Van Alstine, an old tuba player

My grandson has had a private teacher (trombone/euphonium) but he's been traveling (playing) for the last couple of months. I don't know if the students with recitals had private teachers but I suspect they may have. Maybe they suggested the recitals and arranged for them. It's probably more common than I had suspected.

often teachers will have end of year recitals for their studio students. I used to do this when I taught. Either that or you have some very motivated kids there!

ken k

Our Minister's daughter a senior in H.S. this year is a very accomplished violinist for her age, and is going on to study music at the college level. She also had a senior recital, this was the first time I had heard of a High school senior holding a recital, must be a new phenominon. Sounds like a great thing to do for a motivated young musician. Should be useful experience for them going forward into college music study.

Probably just a studio situation - or maybe encouraged by the school (though not facilitated). In some areas, kids are really into it.

It could also be a situation like mine - teaching in an International Baccalaureate school where the IB Music Exam includes a 20 minute performance recording that students often satisfy through a recital.

Either way, very cool and good to see.

Talk about being able to relate - I'm a high school senior playing in a student-sponsored recital in just over a week. This recital put together by our Tri-M Music Honor Society, which is completely run by the students involved in the music department. We came up with the idea probably two years ago to simply provide us with a different opportunity to play some different music. It's a relatively small recital performed in the Congregational church, which is a lovely venue for some small groups. Students simply sign up on a sheet posted outside of our band room and rehearse on their own time.

People have played in duos, trios, and other small ensembles. We have a student-formed jazz group playing music that the founder of the group wrote. For what it's worth, the music is actually really good. Personally, I'll be playing the Canadian Brass Suite from Water Music with a quintet composed of my friends and teacher. The year before we played their arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon. I formed the quintet for the sole purpose of being able to play some lovely music with a few of my best friends. Now that we're seniors and about to all go our separate ways for college, getting the opportunity to play in a recital like this means a lot to me.

Overall, our recital, and I'm sure other ones like the one your grandson is playing in, is based on having fun playing a different style of music that may not be typically available to us. And in terms of private teachers recommending this sort of thing - is it too far out of the norm for a group of students with an interest in music to put together a nice recital? I can't really speak for anywhere but my school, but here we just want to get together and spend some time playing and listening to the musical talent our school has to offer.