We didn’t get home last night until 11 pm from transforming the church into a concert hall, so it was pretty hard getting up this morning at our usual 5 am. We had to make one more airport run to pick up bass David Newman, who flew in from Washington, DC. Carl has contracted David on several occasions—he originally got his name from our countertenor friend, Dana Marsh. David first came to sing 3 Bach cantatas in the fall of 2000: Cantatas 80, 78 and 140. At that time he met Karen Kennedy, former choral director of the University of Hawaii, who sang alto in the concert.
In the spring of 2001, there was a memorial service for gambist Eva Heinitz, organized by Peter Hallock at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle. David and Carl performed Mahler lieder for that occasion.
In March 2004, David Newman wowed Honolulu audiences with the bass solos in the St. John Passion. That fall, because of his acquaintance with Karen Kennedy, he returned to Honolulu to sing Haydn’s Creation at Blaisdell Center in a very memorable concert which took place during some torrential rains. At the bass recitative, “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered,” water started dripping through a leak in the concert hall! It was purely coincidental, of course, but people did not appreciate getting rained on inside the Concert Hall! David also sang in the 80th birthday concert for Peter Hallock in that visit to Hawaii.
So now, seven years later, Carl has brought David back to Honolulu to sing the B-Minor Mass. After fetching David from the airport, we took him to lunch, then went to the church for a rehearsal with the soloists before meeting the orchestra tonight. Unfortunately the church had some work done on the fire exit doors at the same time, so we had to compete with a lot of construction noise.
Noe Tanigawa of Hawaii Public Radio taped an interview with Carl just prior to the orchestra rehearsal. By the way, Carl will be interviewed with a couple of the soloists on Wednesday morning on KHPR-88.1 FM at 9 am.
As is typical with our orchestra rehearsals, the tendency is to over-sing and over-play: everyone is so excited to hear such a big sound! But by the end of the rehearsal, Carl, with the assistance of concertmaster, Darel Stark, made the music dance!
