Evensong is offered every day at the Three Choirs Festival and today’s service was sung by the (mixed) Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir with director Stephen Shellard and organist Richard Cook. For this service, everyone sits in the chancel area, and I got a good view of the very energetic conductor. Two men who must have been… Read More Evensong; A Child of Our Time
I took the train into Worcester yesterday, the site of the Three Choirs Festival this year. I booked my hotel, The Cardinal’s Hat Inn, a year ago at the end of last year’s Festival in Gloucester, because I so enjoyed the high caliber of the musical performances. The hotel is above a pub of the… Read More Back at the Three Choirs Festival
Joan Ishibashi and I took a direct train to Cambridge this morning where we had a joyful reunion with Ian McFarland and Ann Lillya, former Honolulu residents and parishioners of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Ann played oboe in the Honolulu Symphony and Ian worked at Music Center of Honolulu. They moved to Aberdeen, Scotland from… Read More A day in Cambridge
My organist friend, Barbara Adler, suggested that on my tour of London churches, I include St. George’s Hanover Square on the itinerary. So that’s where Joan Ishibashi and I went first! St. George’s is known because George Frideric Handel was a parishioner at this church for 35 years, although there was no mention of his… Read More Handel-Hendrix-Haydn?
I left Warsaw at noon yesterday for the Chopin Airport and couldn’t resist taking a picture of the sign—they are really proud of their native son! It wasn’t until 9:30 pm, though, that I arrived at London Heathrow because of a nearly four hour layover in Vienna. My friend, Joan Ishibashi, was waiting for me… Read More London church hopping
https://youtu.be/DECcjYlO5gY That’s how far away Honolulu is from Warsaw, where I’m sitting in my hotel room now. In terms of time, we are 12 hours ahead of my home in Honolulu, where my former student, Joey Fala, gave the rededicatory recital at Kawaiaha’o Church last night. Already though, several video clips have been sent to… Read More From 7,351 miles away
While my fellow travelers either went home or on to Berlin, my plans were to stay one more day in Warsaw before going on to London. My mission was to find the Fryderyk Chopin trail: there are even apps available to enhance the experience. One was called Chopin in Warsaw and the other was Selfie… Read More In search of Fryderyk Chopin
Today was the last day of our tour, “Highlights of Eastern Europe,” and there was an optional excursion, “Chopin Recital and Dinner” for which I and 12 others elected to attend. It was a private piano recital for just our group! We were taken to the Porczynskich Fine Art Museum where there was a large… Read More Chopin recital and farewell
This morning we took a city tour of Warsaw both on foot and on the bus. Our local guide, Maria, had a very dry sense of humor. She said that in Warsaw because women greatly outnumber the men, it is hard for a woman to get married but not for a man. If men are… Read More Warsaw: city of Chopin
This morning we had a tour of the historic Wieliczka Salt Mines—at one time salt was as valuable as gold that it was called White Gold. That is because salt was once the only way to preserve food.Our tour started by walking down over 700 steps to reach a depth of about 100 meters or… Read More White gold