The "Wow!" Musicians

Our daughter-in-law, Heidi Bastian, comes from a very talented family.  Gay Bastian has a marvelous singing voice and plays the piano beautifully, as well.  Her daughters, Jessica, Heidi, and Mauresa, are excellent musicians, and the whole family is constantly developing new talents, from woodworking to flower arranging to fashion and hair design to hybridizing plants. They operate what Heidi describes as an 80-acre "hobby farm" in addition to Bevan Bastian's radiology practice.  This year, Heidi organized a presentation of "The Nutcracker Suite", with her mother and sisters playing duets of more than eight different pieces on the two grand pianos in the Bastian music room.  Dave and I were thrilled to be invited to the December 23, 2017 performance.

We are particularly amazed at the Bastians' creative accomplishments because they live in such an isolated spot--Axtell, Utah, a town in central Utah with less than 1000 residents!  But perhaps that's part of the magic that encourages them to create.

We especially enjoyed the Bastians' performance of Tchaikovsky's beautiful Nutcracker Suite because the music was so familiar--we watched Ballet West perform The Nutcracker the day before!

 After the duets from "The Nutcracker," the Bastians finished the evening with an "eight hands" rendition of a Sousa march, with son Ben playing the triangle.  Gay then led the Bastians' fifty or more guests in Christmas carols.  What a generous Christmas gift!