Today is May 6, and it’s been more than two weeks since Holy Week and Easter. For many church musicians, it’s the busiest week of the year. I played for seven services starting with three on Palm Sunday, one on Maundy Thursday, a two-and-a-half hour Easter Vigil service on Holy Saturday, and two grand Easter… Read More Survivor … but?!
It’s Holy Week — the busiest week of the year for church musicians. My late husband, Carl Crosier, used to call this “Holy H— Week,” because in addition to conducting nine services of music during the week, typing a complicated bulletin containing all the services and music of the Triduum, rehearsing the brass and choir… Read More The Holy Week marathon begins
My worlds collided this past week when I had two house guests, both visitors who performed in concerts this past weekend. I’m happy to report that both events were resounding successes! You may recall from my last post that Egija Claire, a friend of Scott Fikse from the Master’s program in Choral Conducting at the University… Read More Big weekend!
It’s Day 10 after returning from Iceland, and I’ve been so incredibly busy that I can hardly keep up with myself! This is Concert Week — on Saturday, there’s an Early Music Hawaii concert called “The Musical Journey: From New England to Honolulu,” with director Scott Fikse conducting music described as: The Early Music Hawaii… Read More Hitting the ground running!
Today we are in west Iceland where we encountered a magical world of snow and ice on Langjökull— Iceland’s second largest glacier. In order to prepare ourselves to walk in the ice cave, we had to put on overshoes — shoes that fit over our existing boots— so that our feet wouldn’t get wet. We… Read More In the glacier
It’s our third day in Iceland and our city tour began with the sights of downtown Reykjavik, a visit to a stunning concert hall, return to the Hallsgrimkirkja church, and a walk along the lake. The Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center is home to a national opera and symphony. It is stunning honeycomb building… Read More From a city tour to a lava tunnel
Yesterday was Sunday and eleven of us in our tour group were sitting in the pews at Hallgrímskirkja, the iconic Lutheran church in Reykjavik. Of course I quickly scanned the bulletin to see that the organist was playing two works by J. S. Bach: Wenn wir in Höchsten Nöten sein from the Orgelbüchkein for the… Read More The church universal, except for …
A couple of days ago, I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw it was the birthday of my friend from Paris, Bill F. McCoy. I promptly clicked the link to wish him a happy birthday, and was shocked to see the headline “A Celebration of the Life of William Franklin McCoy,” meaning that he… Read More Remembering Paris days
There’s a new schedule out for services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — instead of Vespers and Benediction on Wednesday nights at 6:00 pm, now there’s Vespers at 5:30 pm and a Latin Mass at 6:00 pm. I’m not needed to play Vespers since it’s all sung unaccompanied, but last night was my first time… Read More The Latin Mass
When I used to work in a CPA office, the one thing we could never escape was deadlines— that is, deadlines to file taxes, deadlines to pay estimated taxes, deadlines for payroll, etc. — the deadlines never stopped. No sooner would you file taxes for yourself or for a client, and you’d be faced with… Read More Deadline: Iceland!