Tonight is the Bach and Prayer service, which occurs on the fourth Wednesday of the month. It only lasts a half hour, and at least half of it is the music of Bach. I’ll be playing three chorale preludes from Bach’s Leipzig collection, also called the Great Eighteen. This morning as I was on my… Read More Bach as comfort
In six days’ time, I will be playing the monthly Bach and Prayer service at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:00 pm. All the music I have chosen comes from Bach’s collection of extended chorale preludes, The Great Eighteen or Leipzig Chorales. You might remember that in 2013… Read More Throwback to 2013
This morning organist Katelyn Emerson posted her performance of Jeanne Demessieux’s “Te Deum” on Facebook, and what I immediately zoned into were the shoes that Katelyn was wearing: stilettos! Katelyn writes: A little video on the 101st birthday of Jeanne Demessieux: her complete Te deum, a portion of which I had a privilege to record… Read More Organists in stilettos
In the last few days, this post on the Facebook Organists Association page has generated a lot of comments: Here are some of the comments: John Gouwens The best-endowed, wealthiest churches I know never came close to paying that! Sheer insanity!! Irmengard Jennings On what planet does an organist earn this much?! Walter Greenwood Of… Read More In your dreams!
Yesterday I received a phone call from Scott Fikse asking if I’d be available or interested in playing the February “Bach and Prayer” service. I really wasn’t sure what this service is all about, so this is the description I found on Facebook: Join us every 4th Wednesday of the month at 7:00pm for Bach… Read More Got Bach?
I have an upcoming concert on March 21st that I’m spending a lot of my waking hours practicing for, and naturally, the program is all-Bach since March 21st is his 337th birthday. It’s the last concert in a weeklong festival celebrating the pipe organ in Hawaii, and I just sent off the brochure to the… Read More Best thing since sliced bread!
This has been a week of reunions, a celebration of long time friendships that have lasted a lifetime. These friendships have all happened because of our common interest in the pipe organ. My current houseguest is Barbara Adler, whom I met in December 1972 on a visit to Hawai’i in anticipation of my move here.… Read More Old friends
For several weeks now, I’ve been working on preparing the scores for my next concert, March 21, 2022, Bach’s 337th birthday. I always seem to make things hard on myself, because I simply can’t buy the music from a music store or find the sheet music online—in many instances, I am pretty sure it’s just… Read More Paper engineering
As I was scrolling through Facebook yesterday I suddenly gasped when I saw this: Chances are, few people outside the organ world probably heard his name. Here is an outdated bio of his work, which unfortunately does not reveal his travels all over the world, as an organ technician and consultant. Richard Houghten attended the… Read More Rest in peace
“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement early Sunday. When I read the news about Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid leader and voice of justice, dead at… Read More Desmond Tutu memories