As organists, we always have to be prepared with a Plan B, in case Plan A doesn’t pan out. I have written about arriving at the church and having to make last-minute substitutions of stops for when a note is dead or stuck, or having to use a different manual. Or, in the case of not having a crescendo pedal, I’ve had to make do with setting up my pistons in increasing dynamic intensity.
Well, in this case, life has taken a veer towards another direction. It’s Saturday, the day after the Fourth of July, and by now, I would have been a crazy person trying to pack and get my life together before going on a European trip on Tuesday. I would have written a post about putting everything together in one single rehearsal as we did for the Fauré Requiem last Thursday night.
Instead I found myself calling 911 at 5:00 in the morning for an ambulance to take my husband Carl to the hospital after he fainted and in intense pain. The long and short of it was that he underwent emergency surgery for a gastric perforation and will be in the hospital for 4-6 days. So obviously he couldn’t conduct the Fauré Requiem for Dale Noble‘s memorial service today, although Joey Fala suggested that he could have done so from his hospital bed via Skype! Happily, Nola Nahulu stepped in at the last minute to save the day.
I also went to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to practice this morning where I’ll be playing the High Mass tomorrow. Just in case you’d like to know what could have been a wonderful trip filled with music, here is our itinerary (cancelled as of today!)
July 8: Leave Honolulu for London via San Francisco. Take the train to York for the York Early Music Festival.
July 10: Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI
July 11: Rose Consort of Viols; The Sixteen
July 12: Yorkshire Baroque Soloists
July 13: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
July 14-16: Edinburgh, Scotland.
July 16-18: London, England (visit with former LCH parishioner Joan Ishibashi, who was going to join us in York for the York Early Music Festival)
July 18: Take the train from London to Paris via the Chunnel, and pick up a rental car.
July 19: Visit Reims Cathedral
July 20: Visit Sylvia Rhyne and Eric Redlinger of Asteria in Dijon, France. (They gave a concert on January 24th, 2014 at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. See my post “Impromptu Concert.”
July 22: Rencontres de Musique Médiéval (Medieval Music Festival) in Thoronet, France; Ensemble alla Francesca
July 24: Soloists and choirs of the Academy of Ancient Music of Thoronet
July 25: Lamentations of Jeremiah by Diabolus in Music
July 26: Spiritual chants of Russia
July 27: Day in Nice, France
July 28: Fly back to London
July 29: Home to Honolulu
Oh, well! Carl promises we’ll book another European trip as soon as he feels better! And, thank you all for your messages of concern and prayers!
Our thoughts and prayers for healing are with Carl. Thankfully this didn’t ‘to happen enroute to or in Europe. Take care!
[…] Say the word, “Choral Music” and “Hawaii” in the same sentence, and inevitably, you will bring up the name Wanda Gereben, whom I met some 40 years ago when I was her accompanist at St. Andrew’s Priory School and Hawaii Children’s Opera Chorus (Egad! that was EONS ago!) Wanda was the founder and executive director of the Pacific Rim Children’s Choir Festival which had a good run here. It was also Wanda who was in charge of coordinating the music for choral director Dale Noble‘s funeral a few short weeks ago, and since my husband Carl was supposed to conduct the Fauré Requiem then, we had many phone calls and emails prior to that occasion. (To read about what eventually happened, click here for my post called “Plan B.”) […]
[…] in the hospital for the service and Nola Nahulu had to step in at the last moment. That was “Plan B,” which I wrote about on July 5, 2014, when I had to call 911 because Carl had fainted and had to […]