William Hay

Biography
News
Teaching
Weddings
Contact
Chester Music Org
Free Manuscript Paper
My gallery
My main website
My studio website

I have decided to update the piano points awards system slightly to take into account that students at some schools may have had fewer lessons through no fault of their own. (pantomimes permitting – thanks to Mollie for pointing this out!)

In respect of this point I will publish a league for average points per lesson as well as total points and there will be prizes for both the highest average points and the highest total points.

All students who achieve the termly points target (28 points – based on an average of 2.3 points per lesson over 12 lessons) will get a certificate.

February 6, 2009 | No comments

With 2009 now well under way, it is time to look at other local competitions and festivals taking place for pianists. Chester Competitive Festival of Performing Arts has a number of open choice classes that may be of interest to my students.

The festival will take place at the King’s School, Chester on Saturday 25th April, 2009.

There is an own choice piano class for each year group up to under 16 with a time limit of 3 minutes for under 10s, 4 minutes for under 13s and 5 minutes for under 16s. The entry fee is £4.90 per class and the closing date is Satuday 28th February, 2009.

Download the syllabus, or the entry form

January 31, 2009 | No comments

Piano Points League – January 2009

January 30, 2009 | No comments

After the first month of operating my piano points system for all school age students I have decided to publish the top 9 points scorers on a leader board.

Remember that points are awarded for practising, attending your lessons and putting lots of effort into achieving your targets rather than on skill level!

Points leaders as of 30/01/09:

Alice from Tattenhall Park with 16 points.
Huw from CCHS and Sophie from Queen’s, joint second with 14 points
Rebecca from CCHS with 13 points
Bella and Sophia from St. Werburgh’s, Louisa from Queen’s, Jacob from EPCHS; are all joint fourth place on 12 points.

There are currently 62 students on the league table. 55% have 9 points or more which is comfortably on target at this stage in the term.

This year sees the launch of the Two Rivers Festival, an initiative to create a new festival of music and the arts using many of the beautiful buildings and locations on Wirral.

ENTENTE CORDIALE – Jonathan Small, oboe and Ian Buckle, piano
perform a programme of English and French music of the 20th and 21st Centuries on Friday 6th February at 7.30pm
MEDITATIVE MOMENTS – Natalie Clein, cello performs music by Bach and Kodaly on Tuesday 17th March at 7.30pm
SOUNDPICTURES – Noriko Ogawa, piano performs music by Mozart, Debussy, Takemitsu, Grieg and Chopin on Friday 24th April at 7.30pm

Tickets priced at £15 or £40 for subscription to all three. Under 21s get in for half price.

Download the brochure for more information or to complete a booking form

January 25, 2009 | No comments

African Elephant Composition by Oliver, age 8

January 23, 2009 | 1 comment

Oliver showed me his composition today, which I think was pretty good for an 8 year old. This is the first time I have used Noteflight which is a bit like google docs for musical scores; making the score viewable, searchable and printable on the noteflight site and producing an embeddable, printable flash score for websites and blogs.

It is able to import music xml from other score editors but currently doesn’t support midi input for editing or allow the export of scores once produced.