It was already going to be a really busy week.

Today, I spent the day teaching on Kauai, and then had an orchestra and choir rehearsal scheduled for tonight, plus two other nights this week in preparation for the Early Music Hawaii concert, “From Venice to Dresden” on Saturday night, May 7th at 7:30 pm. That meant I would be out four nights this week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, with a whole lot of music to learn.

Then last night, I got a call from Nicholas Lee, choir director at St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

“Kathy, are you available Thursday night? We need an accompanist to play for our choir rehearsal.”

Uh… that was going to be my one night at home.

“All of the music is a cappella, but we need someone to read open score.”

If you’ve never heard the term, “open score,” here’s a short YouTube video:

Open score means that there is no piano reduction at the bottom in which someone has reduced the vocal parts for the accompanist to play.

Now, the video talked about a choir singing from four staves, one each for the sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses. However, one of the pieces Nick sent had a solo soprano, first and second sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, making even more voices to look at vertically. The poor accompanist then is forced to look up and down at many staves of music and try to use just two hands to play all the parts. It’s a skill I’ve had to learn over fifty years of playing the organ — but it still makes me nervous!

I guess I had to have a hole in my head when I told Nicholas that “yes, I’ll play your rehearsal!”

Then it was late last night when I checked my email. It was from Scott Fikse, who in addition to preparing all the editions for the concert, is responsible for conducting, singing, playing the harpsichord, and was also going to be playing the organ on one piece. His message was titled “help?”

Hey Kathy,
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the music for this concert. Singing, conducting, and playing harpsichord on 3 pieces. Oh my! 
I was wondering if you are feeling similarly? Could you possibly play this piece with Darel instead of me? I’ve attached it. Let me know. If you’re feeling strapped, I think Sarah and I could play this together, but I’m running out of practice time and not feeling confident at all. 
Thanks for considering!

So… it was a GOOD thing that one of my Kauai students cancelled today which meant I had a free hour to spend learning a new piece for the concert!

I guess I had to have a hole in my head when I wrote Scott back: “Sure, I’d be happy to! No problem at all.”

But wait! I DO have a hole in my head … you may remember that it’s been 14 years ago (!) that I underwent a craniotomy to remove a benign brain tumor. Wow, that was 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics. My husband Carl told me that’s when I got a new brain! Luckily it did not affect my motor skills and I’m still able to play the organ.

I made a video about my brain tumor journey awhile back, which you can view by clicking here.

So, in addition to having a hole in my head—for being crazy enough to take on all these responsibilities in these last few days before my trip to England, Portugal and California—I guess I just can’t say no!

Yikes!