Watch, don’t listen! That’s what I had to keep telling myself during the Hawaii Masterworks Chorus concert today at St. Fin Barre’s. You see, the choir was located in front of the chancel, and the organ console was around the corner. Basically we had our backs to each other and I could not see Tim Carney, the conductor at all. So, Karol Nowicki stood near the console, and mimicked Tim’s conducting gestures during the Mozart Laudate Dominum. Eric Schank did the same for the Brahms, Lass dich nichts nicht dauren and the Elgar, O salutaris hostia.

But in so doing, I had to watch the beat—I couldn’t listen! Because from my vantage point, I sounded exactly one whole beat ahead of the choir! Yet the choir and Tim said that we were perfectly in sync and they liked my organ registration. Thank goodness for that!

However all of my organ accompaniments were quite soft and I was itching to play on full organ! So half an hour before the concert we had a little time, and I saw some works of Bach on the bookshelf. It was the Orgelbüchlein, and I played several of the Easter settings. The organ sounded just splendid in that space!

The choir sang expressively and we chalked up one concert in the books on this our second day in Ireland.

After the concert, we drove out to the Cobh Heritage Center  where the ill-fated Titanic made its last port of call. I took many pictures in this museum and was especially interested in last photographs taken here at Cobh (pronounced Cove). They also commemorated the  sinking of the Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Would you believe that three million people have immigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, Barbados, etc. and they all left from this point, Cobh? It was also known as Queensland.

A few of us went into Cork City center and we had a delicious dinner in an Irish pub called Oliver Plunkett.