I have this fantasy that when you’re retired, you’re able to throw away your alarm clock! No such luck, I still get up at 5:30 a.m. every morning, even though I may have stayed up past midnight to watch Spanish language telenovelas!

It’s a fact of life, like death and taxes, that a musician’s life is full of deadlines. For myself, I have the constant deadlines of preparing music for the Sunday service every week. That means preparing a prelude, a postlude, and an organ introit in addition to three hymns.

I was thinking that I could just coast until May 12th, when I leave for England and Portugal on a delayed trip overseas, and last week, after our Bach concert, I had a week of relative leisure in not practicing for a concert. I’ll meet up with my friend, Joan Ishibashi, and we’ll drive to Cornwall where we’ll visit Port Isaac and hopefully take in some of the filming for the final season of the television series, “Doc Martin.” I’ll then go on a 11-day tour called “Best of Portugal,” including visits to Lisbon, Algarve, Évora, Douro Valley, Porto, and Fátima. The country of Portugal is one I’ve never visited before, and it’s where I decided to go when I determined that this is NOT the year to go to Russia, where I was supposed to travel in 2020, a trip which was then postponed to 2021, and now will be postponed indefinitely.

Ian Capps, president of Early Music Hawaii, however, reminded me that the Josquin 500th Anniversary Concert which was originally scheduled last September but postponed because of Covid, would be rescheduled as a bonus video presentation starting this Friday, April 1st at 7:00 pm and will run through April 8th at 10:00 pm. Could I compile an email announcement with all the links to the video, program notes, and translations? Of course, that also includes updating the Early Music Hawaii website with the correct information and links. You can check out the page on Josquin with all the pertinent program information. Sure, no problem.

Last night I attended a board of directors of meeting for my condo association. As you recall, when Jieun and Ben Newland were my houseguests last week, the water in the guest bathroom had to be turned off because of a water leak. It was off for three whole days, but luckily got turned back on on the afternoon of our concert. Luckily, then, when I took Jieun and Ben to the airport the following morning at 5:15 am, they were able to use the bathroom in the guest suite instead of going downstairs to the gym. I found out this afternoon in a meeting with the General Manager that the problem with the cracked pipe is that I hardly use the guest bathroom—only when I have guests. By not flushing the toilet, using the shower, or running the water in the sink on a regular basis, the cast iron pipes dry out and crack, resulting in a huge mess! At the meeting, I was asked to put out a newsletter about the building’s plumbing challenges. That means not only writing the stories, but laying the text with pictures, finding appropriate cartoons, and editing stories by contributors. Sure, no problem.

Then yesterday I met with Scott Fikse to receive all the music for the next Early Music Hawaii concert on May 7th, for which I’m playing continuo and one solo organ piece by Samuel Scheidt. I told him all the pieces with just figured bass as an accompaniment need extensive preparation and score study—which is practically the whole concert.! The concert is called “From Venice to Dresden” and features the music of Heinrich Schütz, Martin Opitz, Caspar Kittel and their colleagues in central Germany. Sure, no problem.

Uh oh, I’m getting to the point of overwhelm… again! Of course I didn’t even include the six hours a day that I spend on learning Spanish!