You didn’t know that Cleveland was in Hawaii? It was Douglas Cleveland, concert organist, at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, who played a colorful program last night:

Praeludium in G major (Nikolaus Bruhns)
Vater unser im Himmelreich (Georg Böhm)
Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552 (J.S. Bach)
Tierce en taille—Homage to Louis Couperin (David Dahl)
Transformations (Jessica French)
Four Concert Etudes (David Briggs)

The title of this post, Cleveland in Hawaii, I “borrowed” from Douglas Cleveland’s recording, “Cleveland in Columbus,” where he recorded on organs in, where else, Columbus, Ohio. Doug said the title was the inspiration of Roger Sherman, producer of Loft Recordings.

The stunning program was cleanly played and the audience rewarded him with an enthusiastic standing ovation. I think my favorite piece of the night was “Transformations” by Jessica French, which I heard also in San Francisco at the organists convention. I really did enjoy Doug’s registrations (choice of organ stops), because he made the organ sparkle.

And hey — I did appreciate hearing Doug credit “Carl and Katherine Crosier” for the establishment of the music program at the church. In the slideshow here, organist Barry Wenger joined us in taking a selfie.

I actually met Doug Cleveland twenty-two years ago in Eugene, Oregon, where I took this picture and shared it with him last night.

A most interesting thing just happened when I identified Doug Cleveland in my Photos app! I apparently had taken a picture of a poster of organ recitalists in Iceland’s Hallsgrimkirkja Church in Reykjavik, where I was in 2016 and where I’ll be going next month! See him in the bottom row of photos, second from the left?!

That year, Katelyn Emerson (top row, extreme right) was in Iceland the same time I was and although we tried to get together, our schedules just didn’t mesh.

Small world!