When I looked at the repertoire for tonight’s concert, called “Hymn of Praise,” I was pretty sure I had never heard the music before: Bruckner Te Deum and Mendelssohn Lobgesang. In fact when I am booking my Three Choirs Festival tickets, mostly the repertoire is unfamiliar to me—being large-scale works which I would not come across in a typical parish church music program (However, my 35 years at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu were anything but ordinary!)

It was last year, I think, that I spoke to a fellow audience member, who said that the people in the audience at Three Choirs come back, year after year, and they don’t want to hear the same music. Many of them have come to Three Choirs their entire lives and always make it a part of their summer schedule.

So to my great surprise, I recognized Mendelssohn’s famous duet for two sopranos, “I waited for the Lord,” as part of the Lobgesang except it was sung in German.) I immediately thought of my father, because it was one of his favorite pieces of music. I know this because when we performed it on one of my parents’ trips to Hawaii, he commented on how beautiful our sopranos, Karin Brown and Debbie Behnke, sang it.

So it was only appropriate that we arranged to have the work sung at his funeral in 1999. Peter Marsh, father of our good friend, Dana Marsh, played the violin and arranged for the soprano soloists. It was beautiful.

Another tune I recognized was the chorale melody, Nun danket Alle Gott, which was sung near the end of this massive work, 65 minutes in length. The first verse was sung unaccompanied which was a great contrast to the full orchestration which preceded it (and followed) to this point.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed tonight’s concert, conducted by Peter Nardone. All of the soloists were stellar: Sarah Fox, soprano; Anna Harvey, mezzo-soprano; James Oxley, tenor; and Quentin Hayes, bass. I usually pooh-pooh Mendelssohn as being pedantic, but the triumphant Lobgesang really held my attention the whole way, as did the Bruckner Te Deum.

Do you remember my mentioning an English couple I met on the historic walking tour and how they told me their son was the assistant organist at Worcester Cathedral? Well, tonight I met him! His name is Christopher Allsop and his mother asked if I would like to meet him during the interval (intermission).

What I was so surprised is Christopher said he already knew me from my blog! And today was just a formality to finally meet in person!

“People in England know you because just Google ‘Three Choirs Festival” and “reviews”, and your blog comes right up!”

In fact he said that a number of people in England had been reading my blog for years!

I am always amazed that the power of my computer (or my phone when I’m on the road) reaches so far and wide! In fact, my stats as of today are 424,174 views! Yowzers!

Tonight was Joan Ishibashi’s last concert with me before she heads back to London. We’ve had a great time together in sightseeing, enjoying music and eating ice cream!

There are several craft exhibitions and art shows held simultaneously with the Three Choirs Festival which we enjoyed immensely. Here are some photos from the flower festival at St. Nicholas Church. All the arrangements are done by women in the parish.