Today I had several visitors to my condo for lunch — and the topic was Early Music! Specifically, Early Music Hawaii, an organization I’ve been involved with since 2010 when the Lutheran Church of Honolulu collaborated with EMH to present the Monteverdi Vespers in 2010. Since then, I have been responsible for designing most of… Read More An early music luncheon
This coming weekend is the Early Music Hawaii season opener, called “Portuguese Polyphony,” Saturday night, Sept. 19 at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, 7:30 pm. The Early Music Hawaii Ensemble presents a rare opportunity to experience the luminous sacred music of Renaissance Portugal in a program of richly expressive polyphony by some of the Iberian… Read More It’s Concert Week!
I’m going to be playing a wedding this weekend, and as far as I know, it will be the wedding of the year! Oh, not necesarily because the bride and groom are celebrities… although in my world I guess they are, because I work with them in a professional capacity. And — most likely it… Read More The wedding of the year
I’ve been home for over a week now but I’m still suffering from jet lag. I find myself waking up between 1:30 and 3:00 am every morning, in spite of going to bed around 11 pm. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to go back to sleep; other mornings I grab my phone and check my email!… Read More Deathbed music
It’s a Sunday morning in Hawaii and instead of playing for church services, I’m sitting at home in my shorts! That is because Tropical Storm Lala which became Hurricane Lala, knocked out the power for 197,000 Hawaiian Electric customers with its intense rain and wind—including St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. In effect, no electricity means no… Read More No electricity… no organ!
It was more than a year ago that I started searching for business class award seats from Europe to the U.S. Because I flew to London with my family one week earlier, Bill and I made separate airline reservations going to Europe, but traveled together from London, Gloucester, Helsinki, and Tallinn. I had erroneously transferred… Read More Gourmet dining at 38,000 feet
Today was supposed to be focused on the Soviet years in Estonia. We did visit Rummu Quarry and Prison, an abandoned Soviet-era labor camp which closed in 2012. Our tour manager asked if anyone felt uncomfortable to stay behind on the bus, but really, this was not a Dachau or Auschwitz— people were not tortured… Read More Beautiful Keila
Today we started the day by walking through the forests of the Lahemaa National Park in northern Estonia. At first we saw birch trees which gradually changed to pine trees. We walked along the Viru Bog Nature Trail, where a wooden boardwalk led through a unique bog ecosystem surrounded by pine forests and mossy wetlands. … Read More A walk in the woods
It was travel day, meaning that our bags had to be packed and set outside our hotel rooms by 7:30 a.m. so that the hotel porters could pick them up. Today the ferry we rode to Tallinn was more like a cruise ship, with multiple decks and restaurants. Operated by Tallink Silja, the ship had… Read More A day of contrasts
It’s Day 5 of Gate 1’s “9-Day Taste of Finland and Estonia” tour and we took the option of traveling west of Helsinki to historic Turku, Finland’s oldest city and former capital. Each day we are assigned new seats on the bus, and today I sat next to a Taiwanese woman from Torrance, California who… Read More Turku and Naantali