During the Easter season at the 10:30 service, the choir has been singing Gospel Acclamations by Aaron David Miller, which have trumpet, organ and bells for accompaniment. Our resident trumpet player, Allen Bauchle, has been playing along on all the hymns and liturgy, and Peter Hallock’s This is the Feast, adding to the festivity to the services. Yesterday, he was joined by another trumpet player, Keane Ishii! Most people have heard Keane’s beautiful bass-baritone voice, but this was probably the first time we have heard him play the trumpet.

Yesterday Miguel Felipe said that when he visited Honolulu for his interview for the position of Director of Music and Liturgy, he of course was impressed by the two Beckerath organs, the Grotrien grand piano, and the two harpsichords in the nave, but what he was particularly struck by was the vastness of the choral music library. “I bet there’s a half-million dollars worth of sheet music back there!” he said.

Yes, we at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu are richly blessed by our instruments and our immense collection of sheet music. But it is our people which are our greatest asset. Witness the absolutely virtuosic singing of Georgine Stark and Keane Ishii in the two Bach cantatas at last weekend’s Abendmusiken concert! And all those thousands and thousands of sixteenth notes in Carl Crosier‘s performance of the Bach’s D-major Partita! I also include here a YouTube video of 7-year-old Sophia, one of the children in our congregation who won first prize in the talent competition at Iolani School last weekend.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL-NXiQixyo?rel=0&w=480&h=360]