Piano lessons for kids

Julie Cleveland, piano instructor on Cape Ann, takes lessons online for both kids and adults

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PIANO LESSONS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC:
All of my teaching has moved to online lessons for children and adults via Zoom. Although online lessons are not traditional lessons(!), during these trying and challenging times, young people out of school on creative activities outside of online school, too. As I teach teens, I know that some are having a real difficult time during this. I believe music will not only help them with their stress, anxiety, depression; it may help your whole family to cope. And you can take a time out for the duration of the lesson, I got it. 🙂
If you haven’t already seen the video (see below) of the Italian people singing together from their balconies when this all started, it is truly inspiring and moving and shows how the power and joy of music keeps us all connected and “alone together.”

If you’d like to see a Zoom lesson in progress, please visit my Kids’ Lessons page here.

And contact me here to learn more about my online lessons for your child or for your tween/teen. They also include video check-ins half way through the week and soon, possible get-togethers to share the music they are learning and playing during “group” lessons online.
Stay safe, and consider adding the joy of learning piano. Of course it’s not the same, I long for when that time will come.
Sincerely,
Miss Julie

Adults
As with my young students, all lessons are online for adult students as well. Please contact me here for more info. And visit my page on lessons for adult students here.

 

Give the Gift of Piano Lessons to Your Child This Holiday Season

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From now until December 20, the Cape Ann Piano Studio is offering a 20% discount off of the remaining Winter Quarter at the studio for school-age children (10 45-minute lessons). This offer applies to both beginner and transfer students. Lessons begin January 7.*

Please email or call for more information.

A young student plays a duet with his mom at our first-ever annual Holiday Pizza and Piano Party. 🙂

 

*This discounted offer is for young students only.
Adults seeking lessons, you can learn more by visiting my Adult Lessons page, and please contact me if you would like more information.

Can’t make the lesson this week? Let’s do a FaceTime or Skype lesson instead!

Julie Cleveland Piano lessons for kids, Piano Recitals, Piano Students

Last night’s lesson with two of my advanced students who couldn’t make their lesson times this week:
They’re preparing their pieces for our Annual Spring Recital on June 8th. (Apologies for low-quality video/audio, I’m holding my iPhone!)
First clip: “Memento”

Second clip: Fantasie in D Minor (Mozart)

Blog Post Share: 15 things to know to support your child learning to play the piano

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This is one of the best blog posts I’ve read on the subject of how to help and support your child, written by another piano instructor, Elissa Milne, who lives in Australia. I agree with every one of these 15 things! 🙂

Here are the absolute basics that you need to know to be able to support your family’s journey into profound musicianship.

15 Things You Need to Know About Supporting Your Child Learning to Play the Piano

https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/15-things-you-need-to-know-about-supporting-your-child-learning-to-play-the-piano/

Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Spring Recital!

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Tomorrow is the Annual Spring Recital of all of my piano students, and all are welcome! Come and listen to students play pieces from Michael Jackson to Igor Stravinsky! Then hang out for juice or coffee and treats downstairs.

Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Spring Recital
Saturday, June 17, 4 p.m.
First Universalist Church of Essex.
Free and open to the public, handicapped accessible.
For more info, call (978) 491-1658

And this year the students practiced 9,227 minutes and raised nearly $400 for the elephant orphans, so we will be fostering 8 babies, rescued and cared for by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Learn more about the vital and dedicated work that they do at their Facebook page, where you will find wonderful videos about all that the Trust does: today’s video is all about the orphan babies and what their days are like!

 

Last year’s Spring Recital
Little Dupotto, she’s one of our elephant fosters.

Annual Practice for the Elephants: Become a Matching Donor Today!

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Cape Ann Piano Studio’s Annual Practice for the Elephants has just ended—my students practice for the month of May each year for this worthy cause. They practice to raise money to foster baby elephants, who have been orphaned due to the illegal poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks.
Keep reading to find out how you can match the students’ earnings!

Last year’s Annual Spring Recital

About Practicing for the Elephants

Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, teachers and friend, aunts, uncles, anyone!

If any of you would like to be a matching donor for a student (average money raised per student is about $10-12) please contact me. Your match makes each student feel even more proud of their accomplishment. 🙂
It’s $50 a year to foster an orphaned elephant at the DSWT. Your contribution matching a student’s total earnings for practicing for a month goes to an important cause: saving the African elephant from extinction.

If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student! 

Water Color by Angela Sheldrick

Why Pianos and Elephants?

As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks

Where Our Donations Go

The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.
Please also visit the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust website.
The DSWT on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedswt/
Here’s another website, iworry.org, where you can take action toward ending the ivory trade.

Elephants We Have Fostered

Barsilinga (boy)
Barsilinga (boy)
Rorogoi (girl)
Rorogoi (girl)

 

Chemi Chemi (boy)
Chemi Chemi (boy)

 

This wonderful and amazing contest was created by fellow piano instructor, Penny Lazarus.

Elephants Get Help from Cape Ann Piano Studio Students!

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The Annual Cape Ann Piano Studio Recital was a great success, all the students did a wonderful job.
Here they are holding the sign, where you can see that all together, they practiced over 10,000 minutes (earning 2 cents a minute from sponsors and matching donors) to continue to foster our 10 orphaned elephants through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust! They actually raised more than $620, a whopping $730! So proud of all of them.

Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Recital, June 2016
Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Recital, June 2016

And here’s a video of that little guy in the front playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: Fancy Version! After The Lion Sleeps Tonight, of course. 😉

One of our elephants:

Dupotto
Dupotto, the little one in front.

Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Spring Recital Tomorrow!

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My young piano students will be performing in their annual spring recital on Saturday, June 11, from 4–5 pm at the First Universalist Church of Essex.

It’s free and open to the public, all are welcome to attend! The church is also handicapped accessible. We have a reception afterward downstairs, all are welcome there, too.
Students will be playing almost all contemporary composers’ pieces and songs, as well as arrangements of Mozart and C.P.E. Bach.

Come take and break, and put a smile on your face watching kids share their joy playing piano for all of us! 🙂

Performance from last year:

Cape Ann Piano Studio Annual Spring Recital
June 11, 2016, 4–5 pm
First Universalist Church of Essex
57 Main Street
Essex, MA 01929

Performance from last year’s recital:

For more info, click here, or call 978-491-1658.

 

The Story of Kauro: One of Our Elephant Orphans

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The Practice for the Elephants Contest has ended and my piano students have done a great job, practicing during the month of May, with lots of minutes of practicing to raise money to continue to foster our 10 elephant orphans—orphaned because of illegal poaching for their parents’ ivory tusks.

We still need two more matching donors for two of the students:
Keep reading to find out how you can become a matching donor!
Please see below to find out about our charity.

About the contest:

Students earn two cents for every minute practiced over the course of 4 weeks. At the end, we total up the minutes to figure out how much each student has raised. Students’ sponsors can be parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, close friends of the family.

Students also have matching donors: paired with one of my students, you’ll match what that student earned practicing, most kids earn between $10–20.

So far we have matching donors for all but 2 students. Can you match what they earn? The kids are so excited that their contribution will be doubled! Our goal is to raise enough to continue to foster our 10 baby elephants. (It’s $50 a year per elephant baby.)

If you’d like to be a matching donor for a great cause, please contact me and I will pair you up with a student! 

Meet One of Our Elephants

The story of one of our baby elephants, Kauro.

Why Pianos and Elephants?

As pianists we are very aware of the history of using ivory for piano keys and that the manufacture of pianos once contributed to the trade in ivory. But today, piano technicians use polymers and mixtures of plastics to create the look and feel of ivory for our piano keys, bypassing entirely the illegal trade in ivory elephant tusks.

Where Our Donations Go

The donations collected go to sponsor abandoned baby elephant cubs whose mother or father was killed from illegal poaching of ivory in Africa. The orphaned baby elephants are raised and kept safe for later release by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya where it operates the Tsavo East National Park.

Click here for more details on the contest and on the Foundation.
Please also visit the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust website.
You can also follow the Trust on Facebook.
Here’s another website, iworry.org, where you can take action toward ending the ivory trade.

This wonderful and amazing contest was created by fellow piano instructor, Penny Lazarus.