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Eight grader Alexis is our first ever Student of the Month! (September 🍂🍁) Here she is with our Studio Mascot, Pepper. Alexis play First Clarinet. Her favorite piece to play in band is "Mountain Dance" by Ed Kiefer. She is a fellow sushi 🍣 lover. Alexis would like to be a pediatrician when she is older, but she also has an entrepreneurial streak: look out for Dr. Alexis's private practice someday! Her favorite books 📚 are fantasy - all of them!
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Congratulations to Nathan Mun and Nicole Park who both auditioned and made it into All-State!
Good luck to Nathan who will be playing Weber and Brahms in a masterclass while at the conference. Happy music-making! Matthew Crane will be attending University of California-Irvine!
Jennifer Kosty will be attending University of California-Los Angeles! Dennis Lee will be attending University of California-Santa Cruz! Gallagher Clarinet Studio Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 1
Summer 2019 Tuition Rates and Policy Update Effective June 1, 2019 For the first time in twenty years, I have adjusted my lesson rates to better reflect what I offer as a teacher and also be in harmony with the other offerings in San Diego County. New Monthly Tuition: (standard four week month)* Tuition is due on first lesson of each month. Thirty minute lessons . . . $140.00 Forty-five minute lessons. . . $200.00 Hour-long lessons. . . $240.00 *Included in this tuition is a pro-bono Studio Class! The last Sunday of each month, beginning in July, I will hold Studio Class. The skills and values I hope to cultivate in Studio Class include individual creativity, design-thinking, determination, mutual support of colleagues, and a lifelong love of music for its own sake, for the enrichment of life instead of as a means to an end. *REMINDER: NO LESSONS JUNE 4-12* Congrats grads! Congratulations to Matthew Crane and Jennifer Kosty San Marcos High School Class of 2019 Dennis Lee El Camino High School Class of 2019 Matthew’s Senior Recital will be on Friday, May 31, at 4:30PM at San Marcos High School Jennifer’s Senior Recital will be on Monday, June 3, at 4:30PM at San Marcos High School -also- Congratulations to Nathan Mun for his recent Second Place win at the San Diego Clarinet Society Competition! I am proud of all of your hard work!! Great job this semester! Practice, practice, practice! Good luck to everyone in upcoming placement and entrance auditions! Gema García Grijalva is Adjunct Instructor of Piano/Accompanist and I am Instructor of Clarinet at USD, and early in the 2018 Fall semester we formed Duo Lebhaft, playing music for clarinet and piano. Duo Lebhaft has been a joyful project and we are excited to share with you the very first performance. In the future, we plan to continue to perform more concerts and collaborate with chamber musicians around San Diego and beyond.
For our first concert, we chose repertoire that is familiar to us both, and that I taught this semster to my students- masterworks for clarinet and piano, plus a Bach treat arranged by a master pedagogue, Stanley Hasty. Here's the program: J.S. BACH/HASTY: Chromatic Fantasy SAINT-SAËNS: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano R. SCHUMANN: Fantasy Pieces BRAHMS: Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1.
Sometimes, making music is an end in itself. After all, without the simple joy of making music, the motivation to practice long hours in order to improve would simply not be there (and, well, sometimes even then, it's difficult!)
Other times, we can use musical performances to make changes in the world. I believe that ultimately, personal achievement is secondary to the things we do to serve others. A few years ago, after Hurricane Harvey and the Mexican earthquakes, I had some extra time and was able to organize a fundraising concert with students and fellow alumni of the great clarinet studio at California State University-Fullerton. It got a nice write up in the International Clarinet Association journal, and I look on that experience with fondness, and look forward to doing more advocacy and fundraising in the future. Here's a recording that my friends in FourPlay clarinet shared from that concert. Do you think that clarinet is just for marching band or concert band or orchestra? No way! Check out some of my friends who are crushing it on YouTube with their crossover group, FourPlay Clarinet. They make music videos and arrange popular music for clarinet with a techno/dance music beat. I dare you to sit still while you listen to them. The reality of being a musician in the twenty-first century, more than ever, means that we make our own path; we are called to be entrepreneurs. Sometimes we learn the skills required along the way.  Gallagher Clarinet Studio students and friends Nicole Park and Elizabeth Hazard for their recent performance at Olivenhain Guest Home for Alzheimer's care in Encinitas. They gave an interactive, multidisciplinary performance. Elizabeth said that the most memorable part was that "when we played 'Edelweiss', all the seniors started singing along. It was really great."
It is a priority of the Gallagher Music Studio to give performances such as these, modeled on the Gluck Fellowship, and to produce musicians who are compassionate and thoughtful leaders in their fields for the rest of their lives, no matter what they pursue as careers.  Students Nicole Park and Elizabeth Hazard came to listen to me rehearse with the La Jolla Symphony last night. I am substitute principal clarinet for their upcoming concert. It was a good chance for them to see an example of an orchestra rehearsing, as well as to be exposed to a higher level of musicmaking.
It was also fun to be able to perform for my students in a run-through of Liszt Les Preludes! |