Good to hear your daughter enjoyed the Festival, Claudia's Mum, it sounds like you had the sort of adjudicator who makes it all come together and inspires children for the future.

Just for the record, Wirral Festival covers the next two weekends. Next weekend is Speech and Drama, and the following weekend is music. It takes place at Birkenhead High School for Girls. I am hoping to get involved with organising from next year.

Well as a result of this I have gone ahead and entered Blackheath Music Festival. Will see how it goes and will be interested in watching some ensembles - maybe I can persuade some coplayers to enter with me next year if it is a good experience.

I just performed in my first ever competition as an advanced player and it was a great experience.

In the first class, my performance fell to pieces because I was so nervous and shaking. I even had to ask to start again, but the adjudicator was lovely and of course I didn't get a place, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience.

The 2nd class went a lot better (probably because I had already gone through it once), I was a lot calmer and even though I made a couple of minor mistakes, I got a good mark.

The atmosphere was lovely and the critical feedback was invaluable - objective and to the point, from a highly qualified professional. I'm very glad that I did it and hope that the next ones I enter (North London Festival) will go better.

It's a good festival - all the best with that!

Last Saturday, a spent a session as a steward at the Wirral Festival. Luckily they were using three halls and I got the one with senior piano classes, including a mini recital (2-3 pieces , max 15 mins). Very enjoyable ,and I heard some repertoire I wasn't familiar with (separate post in Viva Piano) .
Looks like I will be involved next year, probably on the 'piano committee'.

Well it was the Blackheath Festival today. I can't say that I did manage to watch the ensembles but I entered myself and played two movements of the 3rd Vivaldi Cello Sonata mixed up with the kids! Despite having played it at the Angelsey Forum's Event panic meant that it began very out of tune but it did get better. Oh, how long does it take to learn to play so that listening is actually a pleasurable event for the audience rather than merely a supportive one?

As a kid I thought that grade 5 was the heights, basically because if you started after starting secondary school that was about as far as you were likely to get. Now I'm there I realise that although it is the point that you do start to play real music it is rarely musical. Indeed listening to others I realise that the same remains true at grade 8!! (Though I have probably made progress to be able to hear this, however, it is discouraging to realise that progress mostly seems to mean realising just how bad it sounds).

On a more postive note I can't believe how hard the adjudicator worked. Being an examiner must be doddle when compared with this. She made detailed postive and helpful comments for every performer and by the time my class was on it was after 4pm. It really was a worthwhile experience and I will definitely give it a go again. Its unbelievable how hard the organisers worked.

Glad you enjoyed your Festival experience, Swisscello. We are half way through our local festival this weekend, and I've been every day so far, either supporting my kids and students or accompanying singers. I'm having a wonderful time. I've been doing Festivals since I was a child, and I love it! I'm trying to persuade the organisers to put on some more non-competitive classes eg for adult learners and family ensembles. We had a lovely duet class for adults and children yesterday.