Piano & Organ Distributors in Durham, NC held its first Clavinova Festival in August. Vice President Chris Gilbert says Lori Frazer was invaluable in helping set everything up. “The Clavinova Festival manual was a tremendous help, and Lori was very supportive,” says Gilbert. In preparing for the Festival, he sent an invitation to area teachers, six of whom signed up after taking part in the information session led by Frazer. Piano & Organ Distributors supplied teachers with two pre-recorded software disks and one blank disk per student to record performances. Ninety students from ages six through 16 took part in the non-competitive event, performing original compositions, classical, pop and rock pieces, and music supported by CueTime software.

Students were encouraged to come to the store for sessions in the Clavinova Practice Room. “We had a sign-up sheet at the store for the kids when they came in for a scheduled practice. If they had three scheduled practices, their names were entered a second time in the drawing for the Clavinova,” says Gilbert. And each teacher who had every student do three sessions also got a second chance in the drawing.

Another store that held its first Clavinova Festival last year was Vincitore’s in Poughkeepsie, NY. “This was our first Clavinova Festival,” says Cheryl Wherry, Director of Vincitore’s Yamaha Music School. Ninety students from the Vincitore’s Yamaha Music School participated. “Because it was the first time we were doing it, we wanted to limit it to in-house students,” she says. The students were broken down into “teams” of 30 in order to make a close connection with students and the sales staff; each team was assigned a store salesperson who arranged practice times and assisted students when needed. The store had shirts made up in three colors for the teams, and team pictures were taken.

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