I was privileged to watch a livestream of Naomi Castro’s graduate recital today—if you look at the Tag Cloud on the right column, I’ve written about her frequently. She grew up at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu (in fact, I played the organ for her parents’ wedding!), and her mother and father sang in the choirs, mom Olivia in the mixed choir which sang at the 10:30 am service, and dad Jimmy in the 8:00 am choir. Naomi is getting a master’s degree at the University of Oregon in two disciplines: choral conducting and vocal performance.

We’ve always been close to the Castro family, which includes younger sister Karyn who also has a beautiful voice and has sung in choirs for years. My husband Carl shared the same birthday with Naomi—here are several pictures of them together. I even have a picture of Naomi and Karyn together.

Naomi sang a widely-varied program with all-women composers. While the sound quality was a little uneven, what was clearly apparent was that Naomi’s voice has grown tremendously, with so much power, yet so colorful and with an even tone throughout her range.

I couldn’t help but think what Carl would have thought of Naomi’s concert today. I think he would have said that “her voice is in one piece!” What that means is that a singer can bridge head voice and chest voice seamlessly — in one piece! And that describes the wide range of tone in Naomi’s concert today.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video:

This afternoon, I also attended an excellent performance of the Mozart Requiem with the Oahu Choral Society and the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra at Kawaiaha’o Church. It was a banner afternoon with THREE Westminster Choir College alums singing solos — soprano Martina Bingham, mezzo Maya Sypert (Hoover), and baritone Leon Williams. (In case you don’t remember, Westminster Choir College is where I got my master’s degree — my alma mater!)

It was also the Honolulu debut of Joshua Habermann, new director of the Oahu Choral Society. He is in his 13th season as Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and has been the director of the Dallas Symphony Chorus. He recently moved to Oahu with his wife Joanna and two children, to be closer to extended family.

I was actually contracted by the former OCS director to play the Mozart Requiem two years ago but the performance was postponed because of the pandemic. The score has been sitting on my organ all this time! But with the change of director came a change in personnel, and my former student, Steven Severin, was contracted to play these performances and I was happy to pass him the music.

Here’s a picture of the standing ovation at the end!