An the Rating is...

An excellent. This was not the goal and I am pretty disappointed. I am not disappointed in the how my students performed or behaved though. They were great. I am not really sure what the judges were listening for today. I thought our stage performance went very well. I did have a problem with the sightreading. One of the pieces was just too difficult and long to be discussed and performed at a superior level. I have to put some of the blame on myself for today's excellent rating. We have a fairly small group and perhaps two grade V compositions were just too much to prepare. Last year we performed a grade IV and a V and received a Superior. It just stinks to work so hard and not get the rating we wanted. I tried my best. It just wasn't good enough today. On a brighter note, I was really happy to see the amount of people that went out of their way today to come listen to us perform. It means a lot to me. I bet we had more spectators than any other group. Let's make this a habit.