Now I know why my mother, after she retired at age 83, bought a second grand piano. To play duets! Being a pianist or organist can be somewhat lonely, as you really don’t need other people to create music. However when you have the opportunity to make music with others, it’s SOOOO much fun! Hence, the reason for playing duets or trios with my sisters when I visit California.

Or remember our 8-hand quartet of my two sisters and my cousin Mary?

Now, though, I am in El Paso, Texas, visiting with my organist friend, Jieun Kim Newland. Yesterday Jieun took me to St. Clement’s Church, home to a 3-manual Visser-Rowland tracker organ. Jieun has a two-hour weekly practice time on this organ, the only tracker organ in El Paso. Lucky for me she was willing to give up her practice time to play duets with me.

We had great fun sight reading through a bunch of organ duets I had brought: music by Guillaume de Machaut, Girolamo Frescobaldi, J.S. Bach, Barrie Cabena. and Robert Ampt. They are all part of collections I’ve had for years but haven’t been able to play till now. In many cases, they were not written specifically for one organ, two players—but are transcriptions of solo organ or choral repertoire.

We ended our fun by playing Robert Ampt’s four-feet arrangement of the Australian folk song, “Waltzing Matilda.” I’m afraid I couldn’t find a recording of Robert’s arrangement, but here’s what I read about the tune: “The National Party has banned the crowd from singing Waltzing Matilda before Saturday night’s rugby match between the Wallabies and the All Blacks because it encourages sheep rustling.”

Last night Ben and Jieun took me to a contemporary Mexican restaurant called Elemi in downtown El Paso. The food was extraordinary—I have never tasted Mexican food so delicious or so artfully presented! In fact, Jieun and Ben heard about the restaurant from a TV show called “Taste the Nation.” In a trailer for her new food show, Padma Lakshmi says “this alone is reason to come to El Paso.” Take a look here.