Some people are lucky enough to be grandparents and can share baby photos.(Congratulations, Frank and Sue Haas on your second grandson!) I haven’t yet joined “The Grandparents Club” but I can share photos of a baby organ, soon to be on its way to Hawaii!
I just finished the program layout for Early Music Hawaii’s next visiting artists, Ensemble Mirable, whose concerts will be this coming Thursday, April 16 in Kealakekua and Saturday, April 18 at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Guests artists are Dan Laurin on recorder and Jin Kim, baroque violin, and other instrumentalists include JungHae Kim, harpsichord; Joanna… Read More Ensemble Mirable
I spent this past Holy Week with the Manoa Catholic community at two parishes: Sacred Heart Church on Wilder Avenue and St. Pius X on Lowrey Avenue past the Manoa Safeway. The same clergy, choir, and choir director serve both parishes and go back and forth between the two churches. They are presently without an… Read More Double duty
Last night was Maundy Thursday, and I played the organ at Sacred Heart Church, just two blocks away from the Lutheran Church of Honolulu where I had spent 35 Maundy Thursdays. It well could have been 2,000 miles away in terms of musical style — well, more like 2,000 years away. During the footwashing rite, I must have played at… Read More Maundy Thursday gift
For church musicians, it’s the busiest week of the year. My life this week isn’t unlike many of my colleagues, except perhaps that in addition to preparing music for four different churches, I also am the parish administrator in another — and have the responsibility of typing, then duplicating four different 20+ page bulletins. (P.S.… Read More It’s Holy Week, but . . .
It’s Saturday morning, and my usual custom upon waking is to retrieve the daily newspaper hanging on my door. I may be one of those rare persons who turns to the Religion Section on Saturdays first — to find if I recognize an event which I have submitted (Thank you, Pat Gee, and before her, Mary… Read More Hallock, Lamentations of Jeremiah
Last week, my former student, Joey Fala, texted me about wanting to share “some breaking news,” and was eager to phone me. When we finally did talk, he wanted to confirm some of the details of his engagement here, for the fortieth anniversary of the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. That will be… Read More Super exciting news!
Every so often, I have the feeling that Carl Crosier is trying to prod me into not forgetting him, not that THAT would ever happen. I already wrote about Derek Chester‘s sending me the article from the San Francisco-based examiner.com, in which the writer used my photo of Derek and Carl at the Boston Early… Read More Popping up again!
Four years ago, our visiting organist, Hyunju Hwang, had heard about a live jam session happening every Thursday night at the Hilton Pasadena and decided to check it out. She was very curious to learn what kind of music-making could happen with the premise that anyone could join in the jam session and amazingly, some great music ensued. One… Read More Jamming with a church organist
You meet all kinds of people at music conventions and you never know where your conversations will lead. In fact it was fifteen years ago that I met organist and Lutheran pastor, Karl Bachman, at a national conference of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians in Richmond, VA. That was in July 2000. Just a few… Read More A conversation on the bus