Last week was a week of calm for me since I wasn’t able to teach any organ lessons — the reason being was that we hosted organbuilder Hans-Ulrich Erbsloeh from Hamburg, Germany and his colleague, Bernharndt Becker, while they replaced the worn pulldowns on the pedals on the Beckerath organ. It turned out to be quite a lot of work and took four days. But this morning the organ builders flew to Maui to work on the Oberlinger organ at St. John’s, Kula.
So just now I finished washing all the sheets and towels and got the guest room ready for another guest, John Lenti from Seattle, who arrives tonight. He will play the theorbo in the Early Music Hawaii concert this Friday, September 27th.
The madness this week starts tomorrow, when we will have a first choral rehearsal with the newly-formed Early Music Hawaii Choir, which with the Early Music Hawaii Orchestra will make their debut on Friday, with Carl Crosier as their artistic director. If you want to know the truth, it’s mostly people we have worked with for years. The EMH Choir will include Georgine Stark, Emily Haswell and Naomi Castro, sopranos; Padraic Costello, Jeannette Johnson and Allen Bauchle, altos; Karol Nowicki and Ian Capps, tenors; and Keane Ishii and Simon Crookall, basses. Only Simon Crookall is new to Hawaii — you may have heard that he is the new Executive Director of Hawaii Opera Theatre. (Yes! — a number of these same singers were part of the Bach Chamber Choir which sang the 4-part chorales at my Bach Great Eighteen Chorales concerts in August.)
The instrumentalists include familiar names Darel Stark and Maile Reeves, violin; Mark Butin and Steve Flanter, violas; Karen Fujimoto, cello; John Gallagher, double bass; Philip Gottling and Garrett Webb, recorders; John Lenti, theorbo; and myself on organ.
Right after the Sunday afternoon rehearsal, I’ll be at the Evensong at St. Andrew’s Cathedral where we will install the officers of the Hawaii Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. That includes me — as I am their webmaster and publicity chair. (Oh, by the way, I’ll be bringing CDs and DVDs of my recent concerts with me in case you want to pick them up in person after the service. Otherwise, you can have them shipped to you by clicking here.)
Monday we’ll have another rehearsal of the EMH Choir, then Thursday night will be the dress rehearsal with the EMH Orchestra and Choir. Friday night is the concert at St. Theresa’s Co-Cathedral at 7:30 pm. The program is called “Oratorio,” and is billed as “Sacred drama from Rome to Handel,” including music by Giovanni Animuccia, Domenico Mazzocchi, Alessandro Stradell, Giovanni da Palestrina, Luca Marenzio, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Anerio, Giacomo Carissimi, and Bellerofonte Castaldi. Georgine Stark will repeat her blockbuster Gloria by George Frideric Handel. You can purchase tickets in advance by going to the Early Music Hawaii website.
It’s an ambitious program and boy! do I have my work cut out for me! 150 pages of figured bass! To read my post on this musical shorthand, click here.
But many of these same characters are involved in two other gigs this weekend: there is a Chamber Music Concert on Sunday afternoon, September 27th at 5:00 pm with Darel Stark, Maile Reeves, Steve Flanter, Karen Fujimoto and Georgine Stark at Studio 909, located at 909 Kapiolani Blvd. Music will include Barber’s Dover Beach, Beethoven String Quartet in G major, op. 18 no.2 , and Mendelssohn String Quartet in F minor, op. 80.
Then there will be a Vespers for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu on Sunday night, September 27th at 7:30 pm with music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Jan Dismas Zelenka.