Yes, after four days away from Hawaii, I’m definitely back to work—practicing my Bach concert, of course, but I now have some added responsibilities. For the last two Tuesdays, I have been playing chapel services for the St. Andrew’s Schools. When John Renke resigned from St. Andrew’s Cathedral earlier in the month, he also resigned his position as Chapel Organist for the school. I have committed to playing Chapel every week through the end of the year. I have to admit that I’m having fun playing on the Aeolian-Skinner organ some literature other than Bach! Today I played César Franck’s “Cantabile” for the prelude, and “Sent forth by God’s blessing” (The Ash Grove), by Dale Wood for the postlude, in addition to two hymns.

Since I didn’t return to Honolulu until last night about 9:30 pm, I didn’t much feel like working on the Early Music Hawaii program for their upcoming concert until this morning. Without too much ado, I was able to format the program and send it to the printer this afternoon. This Saturday night, October 29, the early music group Wayward Sisters will be performing at Orvis Auditorium at 7:30 pm. The group includes Beth Wenstrom, baroque guitar; Anne Timberlake, recorders, Anna Steinhoff, baroque cello and John Lenti, theorbo and guitar. They will be performing “music by braggarts, hotheads, curmudgeons and snobs” in a program called “The Naughty List”— music by Bach, Brade, Vivaldi, Locke, Merula, Matteis, Castaldi, Veracini and Castello. What will be interesting is that they are opening with a selection from Bach’s Clavierübung, the baptism chorale prelude “Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kamm, BWV 684”! Just think, it will take those four people to play all the notes of that piece while I’ll be playing the piece all by my lonesome the very next day!

Another surprising fact when I read the program, was the listing of the Early Music Hawaii board members. I was listed as the Vice-President! (I never remember running for such an office!) It’s news to me!

If you’d like to get a sneak preview of the Wayward Sisters program, you can click here to view the PDF version.

After being away from an organ keyboard for four days, I was quite relieved to find that the music was more or less intact from before my trip when I went to practice today. Playing the program slowly with the metronome was my goal—a strategy I plan to use this entire week. I can’t believe that the Clavierübung concert is THIS SUNDAY NIGHT at 7:00 pm!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I wish to thank the 178 of my friends and family who sent birthday greetings through Facebook, truly an amazing community. Although I spent most of my actual birthday either sitting at the airport or on the plane, I was able to celebrate with my son and daughter-in-law on Sunday night. At least when I filled out the Hawaii agricultural declaration (required of all incoming passengers), I didn’t have to think about what the date was!