I am an organist in Honolulu —a rare breed of folks who play the King of Instruments!

I grew up in Burbank, California where at age four, my mother was my first piano teacher. In the first grade, I started lessons with Mae Driver, an organist/pianist at a nearby church.

By the time that I was in 8th grade, I was bored with the piano and wanted to quit. I sightread all of my lessons, anyway, and never practiced! Collectively, my two younger sisters (who also have perfect pitch!) and I went to our parents and announced that we were ending piano lessons. But instead of letting us quit, my mother encouraged us to take up a different instrument. For some strange reason, I asked to take organ lessons, even though the only organ I knew was a Hammond!

My parents asked for recommendations for finding an organ teacher in Southern California, and when I was 13, I started lessons with Norman Sóreng Wright at the First Methodist Church of Hollywood, CA. I fell in love with the beauty and power of the pipe organ and the rest is history.

When I was a senior in high school, Dr. Wright suggested that I take lessons with his teacher, the French organ virtuoso, Marcel Dupré. A few days after high school graduation, I took off for Paris, France, where I had to find a place to live, a place to practice, and how to take the train to Meudon, Marcel Dupré’s home where there was a 4-manual Cavaillé-Coll organ. I spent 6-8 hours practicing every day and had three lessons a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In those days, hearing English spoken in Paris was pretty rare, so it was a good thing I had four years of French under my belt!

I returned to California after a very full summer and enrolled as an Organ Performance major at the University of Southern California where I was a pupil of Irene Robertson and received a Bachelor of Music. I then became a graduate student of Joan Lippincott at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ where I obtained a Master of Music in Organ Performance.

In 1973 I moved to Hawaii where I have spent my entire career as an organ recitalist, church musician, and teacher. BUT simultaneously I worked in various fields as a secretary, handbell teacher, statistical typist, computer support specialist, wedding coordinator, and parish administrator. Once, someone asked me, Kathy, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I started this blog in June 2010 when my husband announced his retirement after 37 years as the Director of Music. Through stories, photos and videos, I have tried to tell the story of an organist and what happens behind the scenes.

My family just groans.