IB music course has three components. They are: musical perception, creating and solo performing. In the performing component, students must submit a programme of contrasting pieces in any style of music that is 20 minutes in length. I have been preparing fo this since December 2019 and my performance will be on the 18th of February 2020.
My repertoire is composed of pieces from the classical, romantic and modern period. All the pieces that I’ve chosen to perform are the pieces that I’ve performed for Trinity College London piano examinations. It was hard to select pieces that will make up 20 mins as most of the exam pieces are not more than 2 minutes in length. The pieces that I’ve chosen are:
- Minuet in D Major by Mozart
- Sonatina by Clementi
- Kinderstücke by Mendelssohn
- Etude in A Minor by Schytte
- Prayer for the Matador by Joio
- Never Too Late by Heather Hammond
- Song of Twilight by Yoshinao Nakada
- La Paloma by Yradiev
I was faced with two challenges preparing for this assessment. The first challenge was finding the time to practice with mock exams in January, music MLI also due in January, TOK essay due in February and my final composition portfolio due in March. I had to find the time to practice eight pieces to perform in February.
The second challenge that I am still faced with is performing for an audience. Even though I have been playing the piano for 11 years and have done piano exams where I’ve had to perform for an examiner I’ve always had stage fright. Performing at exams progressively got better over the years because I only had to perform to one examiner and it was the same as performing to my music teacher. Ms. Duncan, my school music teacher wanted me to perform in class for performance assessments and that’s when I started to get nervous again because I had to perform to the class. It was a lot worse in the beginning of DP1 where I couldn’t play a piece without stopping half way through and starting it all over again. It was daunting for me to perform for the second assessment because the first assessment already went badly and I was worried that it would happen again and I would think of all the things that could go wrong. The in class performance assessments have got better in my opinion because I don’t stop as much anymore even if I make a mistake. Sometimes it’s frustrating because I play really well at home and with my teacher but I just cannot seem to play that way when I have to perform for an audience. I still am very nervous for my final performance assessment but Ms. Duncan has given me the opportunity to invite people that I feel comfortable with to be in the audience on that day and I have invited seven people even though she usually doesn’t let students invite an audience of less than 10 people. I think it’s best for me to perform to my parents at home before the final performance as it will give me some confidence. I really hope that all my hard work will pay off in the end.
Here are some recordings to some of the pieces that I will be performing.
1. Prayer for the Matador by Joio
2. Song of Twilight by Yoshinao Nakada
3. Never Too Late by Heather Hammond (video credits: Author)