This past weekend, I have been a busy beaver and have found myself working on four separate projects —three of them ultimately will lead to musical events in several churches. I’m guessing it was Carl Crosier’s idea many years ago to produce a color postcard to publicize our special concerts and services — and you can probably guess who got stuck doing the graphic design!

This past weekend, I designed and worked on two postcards. One was for Early Music Hawaii’s concerts on March 12 (Kealakekua, Big Island) and March 14 (Lutheran Church of Honolulu), which will feature Quicksilver, an early music group which has been described as ““drop dead gorgeous with a wonderful interplay of timbres,” (Early Music America) and praised for “impeccable, soulful playing” (New York Times).

According to Quicksilver’s website, the ensemble “vibrantly explores the rich chamber music repertoire of the early modern period, from the strange and extravagant trio sonatas of the Italian and German seventeenth century to the spectacular chamber music of the High Baroque. Featured at early music series throughout North America, Quicksilver has garnered accolades in the press from coast to coast. The ensemble’s debut recording, “Stile Moderno: new music from the seventeenth century” has been lauded as “technically expert, flexible in phrasing, and stylish in ornamentation, fully aware of this music’s rich sense of theatre” (Fanfare Magazine) and “Breakthrough Album of the Year” (Huffington Post). Quicksilver’s new recording, “Fantasticus: Extravagant and Virtuosic Music from 17th Century Germany” has been named one of The New Yorker’s Top Ten Recordings of 2014.

I’ll be very excited to hear this group, partly because one of the lead violinists, Robert Mealy, is one of the outstanding key players in the Boston Early Music Festival. He is the concertmaster for all the BEMF operas and orchestra concerts. Hey, I might have mentioned that I’ll be returning to the Boston this June for my fifth BEMF! And, by the way, I was recently named a board member of Early Music Hawaii.

The second postcard I worked on was for the Tenth Annual Organ Concert for the Hawaii Chapter American Guild of Organists, March 22 at 2:00 pm at Central Union Church. We’ll be sponsoring Hyunju Hwang, concert organist, who will be joined by jazz percussionist, Tsugumi Shikano. You might remember that two years ago when I was at the Bakersfield AGO convention, I heard this duo perform and was completely blown away by the unusual and stunning combination of pipe organ and jazz percussion. Go back and read my post about their concert at St. John’s Lutheran Church to refresh your memory. It will be a program not to be missed! Remember, last Christmas I visited Hyunju’s church and we went out to lunch together (“The exit hymn“).

In my last post, “A needle in a haystack,” I told you about the initial planning meeting of the 40th Anniversary of the Beckerath Organ celebration — but what I didn’t say was that I also hosted a luncheon for the committee members: baked ziti with summer squash, zucchini, red/green/yellow peppers and fresh tomatoes; a romaine and orange salad; garlic bread; and vanilla swiss almond ice cream garnished with fresh blueberries. Carl would have been so surprised at my latest culinary efforts!

Finally, I spent about five hours redesigning a website for liturgical artist, Ernst Schwidder. You may recall that two summers ago, I attended a presentation on his works given by Pastor Richard Tietjen at the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians conference in Valparaiso, IN and was duly impressed with the quality of his woodcarvings and sculptures, altars, baptismal fonts, candlesticks, etc. I believe he was commissioned for works in no less than three hundred churches! The website is not yet ready for primetime, but I’ll let you know when it is.

I’ve been a BUSY BEAVER!