Greetings NEPTA Members,

Spring is in full swing, and excitement is in the air as we build momentum to the end of the school year. We continue to strive for flexibility and perseverance in this time of transition, especially as more in-person activities resume. Please join us on Zoom for an informal discussion about keeping our students engaged and safely resuming in-person lessons. NEPTA colleagues and co-moderators, Yun Lee and Barbara Lieurance will join us for this event on Saturday evening, May 1st at 7:00 p.m. More details found below.

I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow morning, April 26th at 10 a.m. for our final Speaker Series event of the season! Guest artist, Dr. Dmitri Shteinberg, will conduct our annual student master class. Come support our talented high school students as they perform works by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin. The program and scores are included below.

Also, later today we celebrate our 23rd(!) recital of the season which is dedicated to our adult piano students 18 years and older. The Adult Recital will begin at 4:00 p.m. today, Sunday, April 25th and you can join the Zoom meeting from the NEPTA website Zoom page, or by clicking here. We have a lovely program of music by Bach, Handel, Chopin, Debussy and Palmgren. Thank you Irina Baghdasaryan for chairing this special event.

It has been an honor to be your President and my term will be coming to a close at the end of this season. On May 17th, I will be handing the torch over to my successor and NEPTA’s first male President-elect, Sivan Etedgee. I hope you will save the date of Monday, May 17th at 9:30 a.m. for this special inauguration and join me in welcoming the newly elected officers as well as thanking our many wonderful NEPTA volunteers. We will also celebrate the achievements of our very talented student scholarship winners at the Awards Recital. There will be special guest appearances and more details will be forthcoming, but please save the date and celebrate with us!

As we emerge from the dark days of winter, I wish you all hope and a sense of much deserved rebirth this spring season. We have learned so much over the past year; resilience, empathy and bountiful creativity! Let this be a time to celebrate the gift of life and our love of music.

With gratitude,

Diana Tetzlaff
President