Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Caleb Plays at Disneyland!

As a celebration for recording 1 year of "Sundays @ 6", Caleb got to go to Disneyland!  
(Well, not really---it just happened to be a pretty good coincidence that his family planned their vacation the day after his 52nd week.)  

Caleb had so much fun and as he was walking past the Ragtime Piano on Main Street USA in Disneyland on his first day, he met Eric the awesome ragtime pianist.  Eric was a nice guy and saw that Caleb was wearing his "Caleb the Piano Player" shirt and asked if he could play.

Well, of course Caleb wasted no time in hopping up there and playing a little Pirates for the crowd! 


They seemed to like him and the pianist even asked where to get the arrangement.  We told him it is Jarrod Radnich's piano arrangement and you can check it out here.


Caleb had so much fun in Disneyland.  He can't wait to go again.






1 Year of Sundays @ 6!!!


It's official!!  Caleb completed 52 weeks of his "Sundays @ 6" web series where he has been playing a different church song arrangement each week.  That makes 1 full year!  

He had so much fun doing it that he has decided to go on to another year!  

You can check out all of Caleb's Sundays @ 6 songs at www.sundayswithcaleb.blogspot.com.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Caleb Wins 1st Place at WestFest!

Caleb entered a talent competition at part of WestFest in West Valley City.  It is where they have a city wide celebration with booths and show and it's kind of like a fair with rides and games as well.  

Last year he entered and won 2nd place, so he thought he'd audition again.  
He decided he would do his fun Pirates song, so he auditioned and made it in the competition.  

This time he was competing with 8 other talented youth.  They were all girl singers, and one boy who played saxophone.  We thought he had a pretty good chance of getting a prize, but then when we began hearing some of the older girls sing, we weren't too sure.  

He knew this competition was a little different than just a piano competition.  This was a talent competition that focused more on stage presence and originality than just the talent of the performance itself.  So, Caleb got together a little skit to go before he actually played the piano.  

Here is the video of what he did on stage before his piece:


He did pretty well, but these older girls were really talented.  We were sure they would win.  At the end, we told Caleb he probably wouldn't get anything, but he was young, and talent competitions were a little trickier than just piano competitions.  He had fun performing and that's all that mattered.  

The MC announced that they had ice cream gift cards for all the participants, so he was excited about that.  

They had all the kids line up on stage before they announced the winners.  We thought maybe he'd be lucky if he got 5th place or really lucky if he got 4th.  

They began announcing the winners, and he didn't get 5th, and when he didn't get 4th, we figured, oh well, it was fun.....and we knew it was OK, because he was so excited about his ice cream.  

We knew 1st place had to go to this awesome girl singer, but then they announced her as 3rd, hmmmm.
Then 2nd was another talented singer, and we looked on stage to try to figure out who they would have picked to be 1st, and we thought they already called the best performers, so we were stumped. 

And then they called 1st Place "CALEB SPJUTE!!!"

Really, Caleb does really well, but we were surprised this time on a 1st Place win.  
Here is the line up of winners:


Caleb was really happy and excited.  (Mostly just for that ice cream!)  
He got a nice certificate and a $100 prize!  (Which he still didn't care about---he put it all in the bank, but when was he going to get ice cream???)


Caleb is a good humble kid, and he's a polite winner.  He went around and told the other performers they did a good job and he thanked the judges.  

We asked him if he thought he was going to win and he had the same thoughts.  He said he thought maybe he would get 5th and if he was really lucky he might get 4th.  Lucky boy!  I'm glad he doesn't have a big headed attitude and expect to win competitions.  He is always surprised and grateful to win anything and if not he is still always happy just to have come and performed.  

Because he won the Junior Competition, they asked him to come back on Saturday to perform in a Winner's Showcase.  He performed his Pirates once again, but then they asked him for an unexpected "encore" performance.  He took off his Pirates hat and patch and played some of his jazzy piece he had played at his last recital.  Here's a little clip of how fun he made it look:

 

What a fun time he had, and he's so excited to be able to put another certificate up on his wall.  That, and of course the ice cream!  



Friday, June 21, 2013

Photo Shoot for Caleb the Piano Player


After Caleb turned 10 he had a little photo shoot. 
 We missed posting his pictures, but it hasn't been that long, so here they are.

He dressed up in his nice tux with tails.


He took some pictures with all his sheet music.....

This next one was all Caleb inspired.  This is his "Ta-Da" pose.


This is very true to Caleb because every day he insists on posing this ta-da pose after every single scale, book or song he is practicing.

Also, we did family pictures at a music shop so Caleb got to have a lot of fancy pictures taken by some fancy looking pianos.   



He liked this next one so much that it became the main picture to his Sundays @ 6 blog and to his cover of his CD "Sundays with Caleb".




Caleb is the Featured Young Artist!


Could this silly face actually be selected as this months "Featured Young Artist"?  
It's true!
Caleb was selected by concert pianist Josh Wright to be his very first Featured Young Artist on his blog!  Caleb and Josh are old friends and so he was very happy to be asked.  

You can check out Josh Wright's blog here to see the featured article about Caleb.  
Also you can find out more about talented artist Josh Wright and even enter to win his new CD "My Favorite Things"!


Caleb gets Braces!


Could Caleb get any cuter?  Well, what if he got braces?
Caleb got braces across the front of his top teeth.  He has a pretty small mouth, but the orthodontist is going to help him have a giant smile soon!  

Caleb's School Talent Show

Caleb played in his school talent show.  He played the Pirates song once again since he thought it would be fun and the kids would like it.  

            

He also played in several ukulele numbers;