President's Message
At our May 21st meeting Dr. Susan Boettger gave a brilliant performance of works by Mozart, Chopin and
Debussy, as well as an interesting and informative talk on Junior Chamber Music. Thank you Susan! We
had a wonderful turn out for the meeting: 40 members! Thank you for showing your support through your
presence.
Our Contemporary Festival took place May 3rd and 4th. I would like to thank Miranda Wu and Angela Yu
for a successful and smoothly run event and the Bryan Avenue Church of the Latter Day Saints and
Pianoforte Studio for the use of their wonderful venues. Congratulations to all participating teachers and
students on fine, high quality performances.
Our Concerto Competition took place on May 18th. Many thanks to our Concerto Competition Chair, Dr.
Scott Smith, co-chair Miranda Wu and Scott Smith’s assistant, Charles Hung on a well run event. The
adjudicators remarked on the high level of playing exhibited by our branch students. Congratulations to all
teachers and students on such lauded performances. Thank you to Judy Lee and Pianoforte Studio for
hosting this auspicious event.
I think a special thank you is in order for Ana Contreras, our Composers Today chairperson. Throughout
the year Ana has written interesting articles for our newsletter and she has organized an exciting May 31st
C.T. participants and winners recital, complete with sponsors. Ana’s level of enthusiasm for the Composers
Today program is commendable and greatly appreciated by students, parents and our branch.
I am happy to report that Dr. M’lou Dietzer is at home and recuperating nicely. She sends her thanks for
your get-well wishes and kind words of encouragement.
Our board would like to wish Roylee Brown much happiness in her new home in Arizona. We will miss
her very much and thank her for her years of dedication to our board and branch.
John Mila de la Roca, manager for Keyboard Concepts is offering a special free workshop at 1:00 p.m.,
Friday, June 13th. Please see his article for further details.
As I mentioned at our branch meeting, it is not my intention to try and “strong arm” members in to signing
up on our job list. I explained that since we are such a large branch and offer so many different events for
students (15 to be exact and we will be adding one more in the fall for a grand total of 16), it is incumbent
upon our members to help share and distribute the workload. I pointed out that over the past 5 years we
have simply been recycling board members and event chairs. This simply cannot continue if we want to
stay healthy and maintain all these events. We have a wonderful membership so please, help us all and sign
up for positions you feel you are qualified for and would enjoy doing. We welcome your participation!
Remember that the deadline for signing up is June 30th; after that, the names of those who have not
registered will be given to our board members and event chairs to call upon as needed.
Have a wonderful summer. I look forward to seeing you at the September 17th meeting!
Sincerely,
Vivian Lee R. Field