Unexpected respite

Mini-Choir Vacation

Itʻs Thursday night as I write this … and surprise, surprise! Iʻm not at choir rehearsal tonight because the St. Markʻs Choir is having a break following a most busy Triduum and Easter. Weʻll be having only a cantor for the next two Sundays so tonight and next Thursday Iʻm at home! I only found out last weekend that the next two weeks will be a mini-choir vacation and the services will be with cantor Mike Dupre only.

Since I was fifteen years old and had my first church job at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Burbank, CA, Iʻve had a midweek choir rehearsal for DECADES! During college, my job was organist of Van Nuys First United Methodist Church where I had Thursday rehearsals, then I had one year off during graduate school. When I first moved to Hawaii, my job was Organist-Choirmaster at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church. A few years later, I became organist of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, and of course, my Thursday nights were taken up with regular choir rehearsals from 1978 through 2012. Extra Saturday rehearsals were always scheduled before major feast days, in addition to rehearsals for concerts. For example, when we performed the Bach Passions and the B Minor Mass, there were also Tuesday rehearsals for the 8 weeks prior.

Unexpected Rain Days

My organ lessons have also been impacted by the bad weather weʻve been having, resulting in unexpected cancellations. You probably heard about Hawaiiʻs back-to-back “Kona Low” storms in March — well look at the headlines in todayʻs newspaper:

Here are some photos from Nuuanu Congregational Church and St. Markʻs Episcopal over the Easter weekend.

Liz Akamichi (trumpeter) took these photos with Thomas Kamisato, Russell Ishida, and myself in the background. We played music for three trumpets and organ for the prelude and postlude, plus the hymns.

That black “blob” in the back is my head!

Easter Vigil at St. Markʻs. People held their lit candles for an hour during the first part of the service!

In all those years, never did I have a Thursday off following Easter or Christmas or any major feast day. So this year Iʻm feeling especially relaxed especially since the kitchen is cleaned up after my Easter brunch. It was the first time that I cooked a ham and I was very pleased at how juicy and moist it turned out.