When I was 17 and away in Paris, France to study with virtuoso, Marcel Dupré, I had only one focus—playing the organ. I quickly found a place to practice, L’Eglise Étranger, which gave me virtually unlimited practice time to learn the works of Bach, Dupré and Franck, which was what I was studying in those days.

You’d be surprised at how easy it was to talk to the church secretary in those days—all we had to do was tell her that we were organ students of Marcel Dupré and from then on, we had carte blanche. How different it is today with some churches in America where the organ is locked away and off-limits! And it seems like the poorer the instrument, the more people are possessive about the organ!

Anyway, in those days I had no responsibilities and no obligations except to take three organ lessons a week. Yup! I had one hour lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It meant that between Monday and Wednesday, for example, I had to accomplish a whole week’s worth of practicing.

At the end of each lesson, Monsieur Dupré would ask me,

“Well, what will you play next time?”

And I had to choose another Bach Prelude (or Fugue) to learn and be able to play it at my next lesson, just two days away! Consequently, I spent six to eight hours every day practicing, including on the day of a lesson.

Well, today, except for teaching only one organ lesson, I spent most of the day practicing and it was pure pleasure! I’ll never forget what the late James Holloway said about practicing, “It’s way cheaper than going to a therapist!”

What am I practicing, you ask?

Music for this Sunday at St. Mark’s Episcopal—I am playing two movements from Gerald Near’s “Suite for Organ,” the middle movement of which is a lovely setting of the hymn, LAND OF REST, which also happens to be the opening hymn. They are also using Richard Proulx’s “Community Mass” for the Ordinary, so I’ve had to review that.

Music for Joey Fala’s wedding—I will be one of four organists playing. I am so very pleased that Joey asked me to play during the communion (my favorite part of the service!): Bach’s Schübler chorale setting of “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” which I will perform with Nate, Joey’s future brother-in-law, singing the chorale. I will also play the slow movement from the Bach-Vivaldi Concerto in D minor.

Music for “Dueling Bach,” Bach concerto transcriptions for two organs, a concert I am performing jointly with Jieun Kim Newland on January 18, 2020. We will preview one of the concertos on Monday, Dec. 2nd, on a new First Monday concert series at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. You may think that the concert is a long ways off, but this music is very challenging and playing with another person complicates things.

With a departure date of July 24, just two weeks away, it’s a race to the finish to get in as much practicing as I can, because I’ll be gone 3-1/2 weeks with no chance to touch a keyboard.