“An embarrassment of riches” — that’s how Father Paul Lillie described the special Mass services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church this month.

No sooner had I returned to Hawaii from Greece last Friday, I was faced with a FIVE-service week:

My usual three Sunday services:
9:00 am Nu‘uanu Congregational Church
11:00 am St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Solemn Mass
4:00 pm St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Vespers and Benediction

(And you know, none of the music is duplicated between the two churches, for obvious reasons!)

Tonight, (Thursday), I played a Solemn Mass for “The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ”—that’s service number 4. The big Communion anthem was Carson Cooman’s “King of Glory, King of Peace” which took a LOT of practice! Here’s the Harvard University Choir’s performance of it, only recorded a few weeks ago.

I would have also played a Solemn Mass on Saturday, May 11, for “Saint Damien and Saint Marianne, Patrons of Hawai‘i” had I not been contracted to play a funeral for one of the pillars of Nu‘uanu Congregational Church that morning — that’s service number 5. If the funeral and St. Damien service had not been scheduled precisely at the same hour, I would have played SIX services this week!

And look what I have to look forward to:

Sunday, May 19, Day of Pentecost (I’ll be playing Maurice Duruflé’s “Choral Variations on ‘Veni Creator'”
Sunday, May 26, Trinity Sunday (I’ll be playing J. S. Bach’s preludes from the Clavierübung)
Friday, May 31, Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Sunday, June 2, Corpus Christi

In addition to my church responsibilities, I also have the Early Music Hawaii concert on Saturday, May 18, which will be directed by Scott Fikse, who is still in graduate school at the University of Washington. We had our first rehearsal last Friday night, at Paliview Baptist Church in Kaneohe. (This was in fact the location of my son’s first preschool, almost 40 years ago! However, the building has been completely rebuilt on the same lot.) We met here because Early Music Hawaii is collaborating with student singers from Brigham Young University, Laie, which is on the other side of the island. By meeting in Kaneohe, singers in Honolulu and Laie could theoretically “meet in the middle.”

I’ve truly jumped back into the rat race and can’t believe that it’s only been a week since I returned from Greece! I’m still battling jet lag, and have consistently been awakened at 3:00 am or earlier (!), and never going back to sleep until about 9:00 pm each night.

It’s been quite a week!