If you think I’ve « gone silent » lately, you might be right. My last post in this blog was about 11 days ago, and just in that short time, I have been, in one word, overwhelmed— by the number of responsibilities and deadlines I am dealing with.

Outside of playing for church every Sunday and having to prepare organ voluntaries like grinding out sausages, I teach organ students every week, and am currently practicing for the upcoming Early Music Hawaii concert on September 16th. It’s all Spanish Renaissance and Baroque music —all of it totally new to me. We had our first rehearsal by Zoom early last week, since dîrector Scott Fikse lives in Washington.

This Friday we’ll rehearse in person for the first time at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, and next Monday, because other rehearsal space was not available, we’ll be having an all-instrumental rehearsal in my apartment! It was the only place I could think of with an organ that was free! I have a Murphy bed in my bedroom, so I’ll put that up so that we can accommodate a lute, a gamba, and two trombones! An added benefit is that my organ is pitched also at A=444, which matches the pitch at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu’s Beckerath organs. (Hmmm … I wonder if that was intentional!)

I am also preparing a concert with the Kauai Chorale in December, directed by Shane Morris Wise, and in addition to accompanying the choir on 7 Christmas anthems (all of them new to me), I’ll also play 5 audience carols with alternate harmonizations, 2 organ duets with my student, Daniel Welch (Handel’s « For unto us a child is born » and the « Hallelujah Chorus » from « Messiah, » plus an organ and viola piece with Daniel (yes! he’s also a viola player) and to top it off, Olivier Messiaen’s « Dieu Parmi Nous » from the Nativity Suite. The concert is going to take a TON of practice on my part, and I’ve already started working on it.

Here’s a rather slow performance of the Messiaen, in case you want to follow the score:

My Spanish journey is continuing, and I recently passed 1500 straight days of practicing Duolingo. And I haven’t cheated either, by using streak savers (which you can « buy » by using XP points!) Nosirree, I haven’t missed a day of practicing Spanish in 1500 days. I usually spend at least an hour a day on Duolingo, plus there’s my Cada Dia Spanish online class every day. Right now, our class is now having a Book Club session, meaning I have to read 5-6 chapters in Spanish a week plus do homework! And I have a daily 45-minute conversation with my amigas! Three of us live in Hawaii (myself, Cindy Scheinert and Sue Haas), and the other two live in Utah and California. We’ve been “chatting” every day in Spanish for a couple of years now.

Not to speak of my other daily activities … going on a 2-mile walk every morning (and listening to Spanish podcasts), doing 30 minutes of yoga, watching Spanish telenovelas every night for 3-4 hours, once a week Zumba class with my former Iolani School colleagues, and flying to Kauai once a month …

But the more intriguing part of my life is that in less than two weeks, I’ll be going to Bogotá and Cartagena, Colombia! I’ll explain at a later time WHY I’m going on this trip, but I’m most excited to let you know that in addition to taking a regular organized tour to these two cities, I’ve also found a tour visiting Bogota’s most important churches, including Santuario Nuestra Senora del Carmen, Santuario del Divino Nino, Iglesia de San Francisco, and the Catedral Primada de Bogota, plus the Zipaquira Salt Cathedral.