Tidings of Comfort & Joy: Christmas with OCS is the title of the Oahu Choral Society’s annual Christmas concert this coming Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:30 pm at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. I was actually contracted for this concert way back in October and did not know until today (4 days before the concert) what I was going to be playing until I wrote an email to the Executive Director asking for program details.
They emailed me a copy of the program and surprisingly I got front page billing even though I’m only playing a short opening medley plus four Christmas carols for the singalong. If you’d like to take a look at the program, click here. The four carols are: Joy to the World (no problem, since I just played it from memory in Kona); Hark the herald angels sing; Away in a manger; and Silent Night… A Christmas “piece of cake,” although I will be playing several introductions and harmonizations I just learned today.
This is the second program in a row in which I have been listed as “Kathy” rather than “Katherine,” my preferred name when performing. I was also listed as “Kathy” in the Kona Choral Society program. Oh well, nobody asked me!
I went to practice today at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, and I had forgotten how good it feels and how much fun it is to play a big instrument, albeit one that has its failings. In several cases, I could not use the stops I wanted for a solo because critical notes were “dead.”
More problematic was that several times after I had played full organ and released the chord, the organ continued to sound on a loud honky stop that sounded like a trombone! Cancelling the organ (taking off the stops) was no help and the only way to “fix” it was to turn the organ off, which it did with a sorry whine. (Boo hoo!) I surely hope that won’t happen in the concert!
Conducting the concert will be Dr. Esther Yoo with Dr. Thomas Yee accompanying on the piano. Tickets are available at the door or at oahuchoral.org.
Besides this concert and the one with Iolani School’s Chorus next week, I have two big parties to get through—one on December 12th for my condo building in which I am the coordinator (we expect 300 people!) and the other on December 17th for residents of my floor, in which I will be doing all the cooking and hostessing.
It’s hard to believe that two weeks from now it will all be over and I’ll be on a plane to Querétaro, Mexico, to join my son, daughter-in-law and grandson for Christmas and New Year’s Day. My youngest brother and his wife, my cousin, and a niece and her husband will be joining us after Christmas to celebrate the baptism of my grandson, Andrés Crosier, on December 30th—along with 130 other people in my daughter-in-law’s hometown! (Baptisms are a BIG DEAL in Mexico!)
So, today it was with some surprise that I received a notice from TripIt, an application which I use to track my travel arrangements, that I traveled a lot more than I thought in the last five years!
