I survived my “triple header” weekend with the Dueling Bach concert on Saturday night, the 9:00 am service at Waiokeola Congregational Church, and the 10:30 am service at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu! I was hoping that when I accepted gigs at THREE churches in the month of January, I could play the same music at all three. Sorry, Charlie, no can do! Owing to the lectionary at St. Christopher’s Episcopal and the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, I would not be there on the same Sundays, and therefore the lessons would not be the same. And at Waiokeola which is a United Church of Christ congregation, the lessons are strictly the choice of the pastor, and they are only chosen one week at a time. Therefore, I had to prepare three completely different sets of music for each weekend.

The concern about playing the 9:00 am service at Waiokeola was leaving in time to play the prelude at the 10:30 am service at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Luckily — at yesterday’s service at Waiokeola, Pastor Jonathan Pak was away and the moderator gave the sermon, about half of the length of the normal sermon there. I chose a very short postlude (only about 2 minutes!) and I left Waiokeola at 9:53 am, arriving at LCH at 10:06 am! Scott Fikse, LCH’s music director, coned off a parking space close to the entrance, and I was in time to rehearse the psalm and the communion anthem with the choir before having to start the prelude!

I did have some funny feelings about playing the service at LCH. After all, it had been seven (!) years since I played my last service there on December 25, 2012. Some things in the service had changed, and what almost threw me for a loop was the closing hymn, which was sung to the tune EBENEZER, having 6 verses printed in the hymnal. Of course I was prepared to play all six, and then during verse 3, Scott came over and whispered in my ear, “We’re only singing four verses!”

I about had heart failure, and almost panicked, “What verse are we on now?!” I wanted to use a festive alternative harmonization for the last verse, so I had to jump to it pretty quickly.

All in all, though, things went well. It being a Sunday on which the focus was the Lamb of God, I played “O Lamm Gottes unschuldig” from the Great Eighteen Chorales of Bach—the first two verses for the prelude, and the third verse for the postlude. I even added the zimbelstern for the coda.

Which reminds me of what most people commented about our Saturday night concert: my use of the zimbelstern on the last eight bars of the Sinfonia from Cantata 29. If you don’t remember what the zimbelstern is, here is a video I took of the zimbelstern from behind the casework at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.

What I was surprised to learn very recently, was that this was Rudolf von Beckerath’s very first zimbelstern installation! Hans-Ulrich Erbsloeh, who was an apprentice when this organ was installed in 1975, is presently in Hawaii and told me that when the request was made to build a zimbelstern, everyone at the Beckerath firm laughed and thought it was a joke! At that time, no one was building organs with zimbelsterns, and it was considered quite a novelty. Now, though, many many organs have these type of gadgets.

Here are some Facebook comments about our concert Saturday night:

Billie Jean Ries It was a wonderful concert☺️
Daryl Akamichi Of the many of your concerts I’ve been to since I’ve been back here, this ranks among my favorites.
Roy Helms Beautiful evening! Bach never sounded better.
David Oakley Ruberg I am jealous of your gold shoes, and so jealous that your feet still work! 😢
Joan Ishibashi Bravo to you and Jieun! Will there be a recording? I wish I could have been there. 💕 [Ed. Note: Yes, the concert was recorded and I hope to hear it soon]
TikeAmy Wong Congratulations! No doubt in my mind that you two are a success! Bravo!
Yoko Kokuni Kessner Ah…. if we were in Honolulu, we definitely were there…😉
Margo Ewing I see your gold shoes arrived in time!

This morning I went to St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church to attend the funeral of Phyllis N.T. Shea, a certified public accountant in whose office I worked 40 years ago (gasp!) as a statistical typist. It was there that I learned to type numbers so accurately, because back then I had to spend 8 hours a day typing financial statements and had to make 6 carbon copies! (not photocopies, carbon paper copies!) When I went through the receiving line to greet the family, I told them that I worked for Phyllis 40 years ago, and one of her sisters said, “Oh, you are the organist!” Wow! I didn’t even know the family members (even though I typed their tax returns) and Phyllis must have told them I was an organist!