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!
You didn’t know that Cleveland was in Hawaii? It was Douglas Cleveland, concert organist, at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, who played a colorful program last night: Praeludium in G major (Nikolaus Bruhns) Vater unser im Himmelreich (Georg Böhm)Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552 (J.S. Bach)Tierce en taille—Homage to Louis Couperin (David Dahl)Transformations (Jessica… Read More Cleveland in Hawaii
An organ transplant is a surgical procedure that replaces a damaged or failing organ with a healthy organ from a donor. The goal of an organ transplant is to save the life of the recipient. In this case, it was to save the organ music at Nuuanu Congregational Church when the Rodgers organ began the process of… Read More Organ transplant!
Saturday’s concert by organ students has come and gone and it was a learning experience for both students and teacher alike! What I mean is that there were unexpected bumps in the road, and at other times, some exquisite moments. What was so great was hearing the wide range of experience in organ playing, from… Read More Another learning experience!