With much disappointment I must announce the decision made by our performers, concert committee, and Board of Directors to cancel our March 29th Spring Benefit Concert. I'm sure this comes as no surprise. The uncertainty of the viral spread, difficulty in coordinating performers, plus extra expenses involved with rescheduling dictate that we will not be able to reschedule this main fundraising event this season.
On a happier note, AAPF has scheduled its 20th Fall Benefit Concert for October 4th, 2020! We are excited to have a beautiful, new (to us) venue - the First Presbyterian Church Asheville on Church Street. The church is home to a newly rebuilt 9 foot concert grand piano, and we hope to have a second piano join it in some of our performances this Fall.
Some thoughts to those of you who had planned to attend our Spring Benefit Concert: 1) You can still purchase tickets! If you choose to do so, that money can go directly to the funding of our Continuing Private Piano Lessons Awards and for our Keys for Kidz program, both of which help financially challenged families pay for piano lessons. 2) If you have already purchased tickets, you may choose to have us use that ticket money for the Student Awards or receive a refund. I will be individually contacting those of you who have purchased tickets to determine what you would like us to do with the money.
To our Advertising Supporters: The ads you have paid for in our concert programs also directly support our Student Assistance Awards programs. AAPF will be sending out an email letter telling you about the discount you will receive if you continue to advertise with us this fall. It will also tell you about the recognition you will receive on our newly-being-developed website and inside the concert program itself. The money we have received this season in advertising revenue has been just as significant as has been the income from ticket sales to our concerts! Your continued support is very necessary to the continuation of Student Assistance Awards.
I end this email expressing AAPF's thankfulness to our wonderful volunteer performers, to our concert committee and other volunteers who have been on the Spring concert's production "team", to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville which is being very flexible with us as we move forward into next season, and finally to our Board which has recently been working overtime during the course of the last week.
Looking forward to other events,
Karen Boyd, co-president 2019-2020 and concert committee member
April
25 Apr 25: Student Spring Recital Lutheran Church of the Nativity 2425 Hendersonville Road, Arden, North Carolina. This event has been cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
May
9 May 9: Board of Directors Meeting Time and location TBA.
16 May 16: Annual Meeting of AAPF
We may not be able to meet in person at this time, but AAPF is still holding meetings and events, via Zoom technology. Big event for all members: our May meeting is happening online using Zoom on May 16th. Not only is that meeting to be our Annual business meeting when new members of the Board will be nominated and elected, but we will be presenting new bylaws and a budget for 2020-2021 to be voted upon. Even more exciting is our presentation for that morning: "Piano Revealed, a New Method Fostering Creativity & Critical Thinking" with composer and frequent AAPF performer, not to mention a past president of AAPF, Nathan Shirley talking about an exciting new piano method system of learning.
More about that presentation
Piano Revealed is a 7 book series to guide beginners, both young and old, through the art of piano playing. Inspiration came from the simple, yet exquisite little pieces for children by Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and others. Quite a few of the masters composed music for children, but most wrote a fairly small number of such pieces covering a fairly narrow difficulty level. The primary goal of Piano Revealed is to present a wealth of simple yet engaging pieces, from absolute beginner to intermediate level, without compromising artistic quality. Improvisation and composition are woven in from the beginning.
29 May 29: Teacher Roundtable Our next scheduled Teacher Roundtable gathering is planned for Friday, May 29th 10 a.m. - 12 noon on Zoom. Laura Chu Stokes of EZNotes will present some of her
e-znotes.com music teaching tools which have been helping teachers and students nationwide and internationally since 1989.
On 5/29 via Zoom, Laura will offer a brief presentation on EZNotes materials and then we will have a great opportunity to exchange ideas on what's working with online lessons, what's not working and anything in between! Laura will soon send a short questionnaire for what teachers most need or have questions about in their transition to online lessons.
A special offer FOR RIGHT NOW from Laura at EZNotespianostudio:
Are you teaching online and needing an accurately sized keyboard image to show on-camera hand positions/fingerings? Grab your pair of FREE KEYBOARD STICKERS, to show chord positions, penta/scales, black-key groupings and whatever you need to augment your instruction. Email Laura Chu Stokes, NCTM at with your address for your keyboard stickers!
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