June 28, 2015 US National JOC Concert/US JOC Camp
The USA National JOC was held at the prestigious Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Cerritos CA. The concert was held on Sunday June 28th @ 5:30 pm. The concert featured selected students from Yamaha Music Schools across the United States and also a guest from Canada.
Jelena Loi, student of Ms. Pauline Ng, graduates from JMC4, was invited to perform her piece Galaxy with her friend, Matthew Jiang at this concert.
Jelena was presented with an award for her outstanding performance.
The final bow from all of the performers at the Concert.
The JOC was the final activity of the USA JOC Camp which was held in the conference center of the Sheraton Cerritos hotel. At the camp, Yamaha students attended workshops concentrating on composition, improvisation and piano performance for 3 days. In addition to these subjects, the students also had workshops on percussion and voice. In addition, they all performed in keyboard ensembles.
Different workshops, masterclasses were offered. Campers were all having a great time!
From Jelena Loi:
When life is perfect, there is always a feeling of overwhelming happiness and excitement around you. This is how I felt during Yamaha Junior Original Concert Camp 2015 held this summer in Cerritos, California, in the greater Los Angeles area. My duet partner, Matthew Jiang and I were granted a full
Yamaha scholarship to attend the JOC camp in Los Angeles held between June 25th and June 29th, where we performed our JOC piece “Voyage at the Galaxy” at the US national JOC concert on June 28th, 2015.
Amongst the 35 JOC campers from across the United States, Matthew and I were the only participants from Canada. My typical day at the camp starts off with an alarm at 7 AM every morning. After breakfast, my parents and Matthews parent walked us from our hotel rooms to the drop off reception desk at the hotel's lobby and our exciting and fulfilling musical day begins. My teammate Matthew and I took part everyday in various workshops conducted by professional musicians from across the US.
Our team leader Melissa accompanies us in all sessions and escorts us to the location of the next workshop. Our daily schedules are jammed packed with various workshops such as improvisation, ensemble, choir, composition, piano performance and drum workshop, which leave us little free time during the camp. Noon at the private lunchroom is probably the only time to catchup with one another when we all wind down at the hotel with all campers and clinicians.
The highlight of this JOC camp is the final JOC concert held on the last day of the camp schedule. This concert featured 14 selected young composers from across USA and Canada, with compositions ranging from solo piano, duet, ensemble in classical, romantic, jazz, modern and 20th century styles.
The JOC concert has been well received though sadly all good things come to an end. I knew that I wouldn't be seeing most of this year's camp participants again as they were from USA. For the first time in my life, I was left with tears as we said our goodbyes and reluctantly parted to head back towards our respective hometowns. I went home, still on a high from the excitement of the camp experience, but quickly frowned as I thought of all my new friends that lived in the States. I learnt many things musical and also about myself at the JOC camp. The many hard working talented young musicians that I met motivated me to practice more seriously and study music harder from hereon. It was fairly easy for me to make friends at the camp as we all share the same passion in music. The JOC camp experience is one of the best things that has ever happened to me as I felt truly blessed
to have met the people and musicians there.
August, 2015
Jelena Loi, student of Ms. Pauline Ng, graduates from JMC4, was invited to perform her piece Galaxy with her friend, Matthew Jiang at this concert.
Jelena was presented with an award for her outstanding performance.
The final bow from all of the performers at the Concert.
The JOC was the final activity of the USA JOC Camp which was held in the conference center of the Sheraton Cerritos hotel. At the camp, Yamaha students attended workshops concentrating on composition, improvisation and piano performance for 3 days. In addition to these subjects, the students also had workshops on percussion and voice. In addition, they all performed in keyboard ensembles.
Different workshops, masterclasses were offered. Campers were all having a great time!
From Jelena Loi:
When life is perfect, there is always a feeling of overwhelming happiness and excitement around you. This is how I felt during Yamaha Junior Original Concert Camp 2015 held this summer in Cerritos, California, in the greater Los Angeles area. My duet partner, Matthew Jiang and I were granted a full
Yamaha scholarship to attend the JOC camp in Los Angeles held between June 25th and June 29th, where we performed our JOC piece “Voyage at the Galaxy” at the US national JOC concert on June 28th, 2015.
Amongst the 35 JOC campers from across the United States, Matthew and I were the only participants from Canada. My typical day at the camp starts off with an alarm at 7 AM every morning. After breakfast, my parents and Matthews parent walked us from our hotel rooms to the drop off reception desk at the hotel's lobby and our exciting and fulfilling musical day begins. My teammate Matthew and I took part everyday in various workshops conducted by professional musicians from across the US.
Our team leader Melissa accompanies us in all sessions and escorts us to the location of the next workshop. Our daily schedules are jammed packed with various workshops such as improvisation, ensemble, choir, composition, piano performance and drum workshop, which leave us little free time during the camp. Noon at the private lunchroom is probably the only time to catchup with one another when we all wind down at the hotel with all campers and clinicians.
The highlight of this JOC camp is the final JOC concert held on the last day of the camp schedule. This concert featured 14 selected young composers from across USA and Canada, with compositions ranging from solo piano, duet, ensemble in classical, romantic, jazz, modern and 20th century styles.
The JOC concert has been well received though sadly all good things come to an end. I knew that I wouldn't be seeing most of this year's camp participants again as they were from USA. For the first time in my life, I was left with tears as we said our goodbyes and reluctantly parted to head back towards our respective hometowns. I went home, still on a high from the excitement of the camp experience, but quickly frowned as I thought of all my new friends that lived in the States. I learnt many things musical and also about myself at the JOC camp. The many hard working talented young musicians that I met motivated me to practice more seriously and study music harder from hereon. It was fairly easy for me to make friends at the camp as we all share the same passion in music. The JOC camp experience is one of the best things that has ever happened to me as I felt truly blessed
to have met the people and musicians there.
August, 2015