Last April you may recall that my good friend, Joan Ishibashi and I drove out from London to the Cornish countryside to visit the village of Port Isaac, the setting of the television show, Doc Martin. Joan lived for fifteen years in Honolulu but moved to London seven years ago—I not only saw her in April, but also in July when we attended the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester.

For our listening pleasure, she had stocked the car full of CDs from the Baroque orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, directed by Jeanette Sorrell, a group she had come to know during her years in Cleveland. It took us seven hours to drive from London to Port Isaac, and five hours to drive back, and we played all of their CDs that she had brought, including Handel Messiah, Bach St. John Passion, Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, Praetorius Christmas Vespers, and Sephardic Journey.

If you go to their website, they actually have a bunch more CDs, but those are the titles I remember playing in the car! Actually Joan drove (with the steering wheel on the right side!) and I operated the CD player.

The long and short of it was that I absolutely fell in love with the sound of Apollo’s Fire, and was intrigued with the idea of visiting Cleveland at a time when Joan would also be there in October 2019. I found an inexpensive airfare and am all set to go!

We have made plans to also hear the Cleveland Orchestra where Joan has made friends with several of the instrumentalists. One day we’ll also visit Amish country.

Then Joan asked what else I wanted to do. “Why, see organs, of course.”

I already plan to attend the Sunday service at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral where Todd Wilson is the organist. I have heard him play at several AGO conventions and have always been impressed with his performances and am looking forward to hearing the Flentrop organ.

It is also the home parish of David Lawrence, whom I met in Greece, so I am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with him.

Joan also told me about the Bedient organ at the Amistad Chapel at the United Church of Christ headquarters (where she formerly worked) and with her contacts there, she thought there would be no problem in getting access to that instrument. In fact, her suggestion was how about playing a concert there? Sure, no problem!

But there is also a large Beckerath organ at Trinity Lutheran Church in Cleveland so Joan inquired about having me come try the organ. Trinity’s Beckerath was built in 1956 in Hamburg, Germany by Rudolph von Beckerath, who crafted it in the tradition of the organs of northern Europe in the Baroque era. This organ was the first large mechanical-action pipe organ in North America built on historic Baroque principles. I guess the timing of her inquiry was serendipitous because not only will I be allowed to try out the organ, I’ll be giving the weekly Wednesday organ recital on October 23rd! Here is a photo of the organ, and you can read all about the organ here.

So Joan got me two engagements in Cleveland! —bet you didn’t know that I had an agent who lives in London!