I am soooo sorry that we English speakers have such inadequate words to express ourselves! Maybe it would be better if I said it in Spanish instead! ¡GUAU GUAU GUAU!

This afternoon was Caroline Robinson’s organ concert at Central Union Church and right off the bat she opened with a stunning performance of Anne Wilson’s “Toccata,”and my jaw dropped at her clean, virtuosic playing, with imaginative and colorful registrations.

The rest of her program was a blockbuster after blockbuster, and she exploited the colors of the organ and range of literature to their fullest. Her technique was flawless and stunning. Did I mention that I absolutely LOVED her fantastic registration?!

After the Wilson “Toccata,” she played two American folk hymns arranged by George Shearing, “I love thee, my Lord” and “There is a happy land;” “Praeludium in G” by Nikolaus Bruhns, and ended the first half with Leo Sowerby’s “Fast and Furious” from the Symphony for Organ in G. After intermission she played Florence Price’s “Air,” from the Suite for Organ and ended the program with one of the most exciting renditions I’ve heard of Maurice Duruflé’s “Suite, op.5.”

She kept me on the edge of my seat, to be sure!

Karl Bachman, our chapter treasurer, texted Adam Pajan, Caroline’s first organ teacher and our Hawaii Chapter recitalist for 2019, about the success of Caroline’s concert here and this is what Adam texted back:

She’s one of the few instances where the student far surpasses the teacher and you can still feel good about it. 😂

Caroline used an iPad to read the music and I asked her whether she used a Bluetooth pedal to turn the pages. “No, I move my mouth.” She demonstrated how she moves her mouth to the right to turn the next page and she moves her mouth to the left to turn back a page.

Watch this video to see how it’s done:

Caroline’s parents, Gary and Kathleen (Kathy) came to Hawaii for her concerts in Kapa‘a and Honolulu, and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting them and finding out they are both musicians. What was especially fun to find out was that Caroline’s mom is also named Kathy (and also named after Kathy Fiscus who fell down a well! I wrote a blog post for my 50th high school reunion, which you can read here, which explains why so many girls my age got named Kathy!) And get this, Caroline’s mom Kathy speaks Spanish too! However, she has been studying the language since school days and I have only been studying about 3-1/2 years.