A couple of weeks ago I joined in a Zoom meeting of Deans in the American Guild of Organists. The Dean of the AGO Chapter is like the local president, and I am completing my second year. I think this is at least my third, and maybe even my fourth (!) stint as Dean of the Hawai’i Chapter, and each time I have served for two years in a row.

We were exhorted to contact every single one of our members just to say “hello” in this time of self-isolation. Sometimes a simple phone call can make all the difference between loneliness and despair. Some organists are playing on Sundays for their church’s live-streams, but many others are sitting home on Sunday mornings because their church’s services have been suspended.

Since we have eight people on the AGO Executive Board, I assigned each officer an assignment of four or five people to call. I suggested that the call might take only a few minute to just check in with people.

I was assigned last names from D through F and was so excited to see that I would be calling my former student Joey Fala who lives in North Carolina. He continues as Organ Scholar at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, NC in addition to playing a daily carillon recital on the Duke University Carillon.

You may recall that Joey was recently written up in a story by the Wall Street Journal (“Unlikely hero“) for playing the carillon as part of an “essential” service for the Duke University campus—even if no students are around and faculty members are working from home!

At first, Joey posted a daily carillon video on his Facebook page. There were some days when he stayed up in the bell tower almost the whole day! Now, however, the University Chapel livestreams his daily recital at 5:00 pm EDT on their Facebook page and here’s today’s concert:

Today Duke Chapel also posted a video from April 26, 2018, in which Joey is playing the organ:

Joey and I had a lot of catching up to do and our phone call lasted 57 minutes! He says that he has the urge to bake bread but it’s impossible to find flour or yeast in the local supermarkets. Apparently only about one-third of the people you see are wearing masks; traffic seems pretty normal.

Part of my assignment was also to speak to Joseph Eppink, organist/choirmaster of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and he also posts a daily video—mostly of him playing the piano at home in addition to an inspirational message.

You can see one of his videos here:

He also is part of his church’s weekly livestream, except that he does not go to the church but records from home. The one exception was on Easter Day, where he just HAD to play “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” on the organ. Joe also is a music therapist at Bristol Hospice.

Apparently a number of our AGO members happened to catch me on TV talking about waiting three hours in line at the fabric store (“Three Hours“) and asked me for a mask. I was happy to oblige, and ended up giving away 20 masks to AGO members, including 15 to the Rev. Paul Lillie at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

So far I have made 96 masks and now only have three on hand—the rest have all been mailed or given away!