When 16-year-old Anna Betuzzi sits down at the piano and opens her sheet music, folks know something special is going to happen.
When you look around at the audience, you see people with their eyes closed and smiles on their faces – Anna makes the piano come alive, as her fingers dance across the keyboard.
The Grade 11 Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School student says she loves music, and it shows.
Anna started her musical journey by taking lessons from Karen Fahrentholz for the first 5 grades in piano and then she started taking lessons from Ginny-Lou Alexander.
Ginny-Lou notes Anna recently performed her Grade 9 piano exam in Coquitlam on Feb. 4 (87%), and also wrote the Music Theory 5 exam in January (87%). She received First Class Honour marks for both of them.
“Anna is an extremely dedicated, hard-working student, and a real joy to teach.”
The 108 Mile Ranch resident plays an assortment of instruments – piano, oboe and bassoon – and also sings in the school choir.
She also picks up the conductor’s baton when the PSO band teacher is away, and sometimes helps direct the 100 Mile House Community Band, when she isn’t playing the oboe. Anna also plays the oboe, which is her favourite instrument, in two school bands.
The students have also started a jazz band at school and Anna plays piano for that group.
Most recently, she started accompanying Ginny-Lou’s singing student Kayleigh Jacobson.
Anna dedicates a lot of spare time to practising her craft – one hour a day each on piano and oboe – and also spends some time on the bassoon and singing.
Anna plans to make her livelihood with music; she hopes to attend the University of Victoria and work toward a Bachelor of Music degree.
“The program has a lot of options, including teaching, theory, composition, performance or just general music studies,” she says.
“I’m hoping to be a teacher eventually, but I’m not quite sure if I want to have my own studio or if I want to teach in schools.”
With a 96% average, Anna definitely has the grades to make the jump to university.
The busy musician has also found time to hold down a part-time job at Save-On-Foods.
“I love it. It’s really taught me about the importance of time management.”
