I didn’t expect to get home and start crying. It’s okay I’m not wracked with gasping sobs. I am just a bit teary and sad. Emotional, I believe it’s called. Tonight was probably one of my student’s last performances at the Eisteddfod. I started teaching her when she was a little girl of 8 and now she is about to turn 17. She is completing Year 12 and working towards her AMusA on the piano. Together over the last few years we have travelled the ups and downs of public performance together. She gets nervous playing in front of audiences. Exams (where you play in front of one person) are not so scary. So each year we have prepared for the music eisteddfod. We have spent hour upon hour working our way through learning the notes of ever challenging pieces, mastering the technical difficulties, having lengthy discussions about style, tempo, mood and character. We have talked about Debussy and Chopin, Brahms and Grainger. She has challenged herself as a student and I have enjoyed every moment of the challenge as a teacher in helping her to mature as a musician and interpret quite difficult repertoire. This week she played Elena Kats-Chernin’s Russian Rag and Debussy’s La Soiree dans Grenade. And as I sat and listened to her finish her Debussy tonight, I was suddenly overcome with the fact that something was ending. Something that I have done for so many years has drawn to a close. I will miss it greatly. Every student is different and I have others who are just starting on their musical journey. They have all done very well this week placing in their sections. But this ending is something I was not ready for. I hadn’t given it much thought. I wasn’t prepared! And now, I’m sitting at my keyboard with a huge lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.