My sister-in-law, Carol Rodi (Carl Crosier’s sister) made the comment recently, “It’s SOOOO expensive to live in Hawaii, and it’s even MORE expensive to die!” We were meeting with people at the mortuary, who were more than happy to do anything we wanted, for a price of course. One thing families may do here is pay for an obituary in the newspaper, which I learned about a few years ago when I helped with the funeral arrangements for organist Robert T. Anderson. Those “ads” are not cheap and may cost thousands of dollars!

It just so happened that it was at that meeting at the mortuary that I checked my email, and found a message from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Pat Gee, the religion writer with whom I have had many email and telephone exchanges over the last few years, really wanted to do a story on Carl, but apologized that she was going to be away. I suggested that Steven Mark, a staff writer who is also a musician, be asked to do the story, since I believed Carl’s story ought to be told. Steven was the logical choice since he had written many stories on Carl in the past.

So it was with some glee that I told the funeral director that we would not need to have a paid obituary after all. Here’s the story, shown below, which you may click to enlarge.

In the online edition of the story, there are additional references to archived articles on the Crosiers which I’ve copied here: (Sorry, these are premium stories which require a Star-Advertiser subscription.)

Meditations 

Cantor’s finale of joyful noise 

Sounds of the spirit 

Retired organist keeps making music 

Classical music enhances solemnity of Triduum 

When I was interviewed by Steven Mark, I felt that he was personally grieved and saddened at Carl’s passing. He in fact said that when he saw the news release, he first thought that Carl was conducting a Requiem, not that he himself had died and others would be singing a requiem in his memory. Steven said that the first concert he attended of Carl’s was the harpsichord program — remember that madness?! It was called “Harpsichords 1•2•3•4” and featured concertos for one harpsichord, two harpsichords, three harpsichords, and four harpsichords! The line to get into the church went down the block! But there were also two other concertos on the program, and Carl ended up not only playing in five of the pieces, plus conducting the “Quad,” but also he had to tune all those harpsichords, along with Mark Russell. 

You talk about insanity, that was it!