As I was listening to my former student Joey Fala play Choral Vespers at Duke University tonight, I thought he must surely be in hog heaven! I thought back to a day sixteen years ago when I first met Joey at Iolani School, who used to always come to chapel to hear me practice. His… Read More Hog heaven
What is the seating capacity of Duke University Chapel? That’s the question I typed into my phone at the concert by the Tallis Scholars last night. The answer I got was 1600, and although I couldn’t see all the way to the back, the building looked pretty full to me. The Tallis Scholars is a… Read More Heavenly sublime
And I haven’t even gotten to Amsterdam yet! I left Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon and stopped briefly in Los Angeles and Houston before arriving at Raleigh-Durham airport about noon on Wednesday. Of course I didn’t sleep a wink—what was running through my head was Olivier Messiaen’s L’Ascension suite from Steven Severin’s recital on Sunday! Even… Read More Tulip-crazy
I really wasn’t expecting to play for church this morning; in fact I was looking forward to a morning off when I got a message from Fr. David Gierlach of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church yesterday: “Good morning, Kathy… Just on the off chance that you are not in Paris or Rome and are totally bored—tomorrow morning might… Read More Low Sunday … NOT!
Pure energy and exhilaration… that’s how I would describe tonight’s Oahu Choral Society’s concert with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. I came away breathless, my heart racing with a spring in my step! The music, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, were the perfect pair of works, each with its driving rhythms yet singable… Read More Pure energy and exhilaration!
What time is it in the U.K.? I typed this in my browser repeatedly last night to make sure I knew what time it was in England. You see, I was counting down the minutes it would be exactly April 4th at 10:00 am in England—that was when tickets would be available for this year’s… Read More 11 time zones away
I have to say that this year’s Holy Week has been about as unholy and unlike any other which I spent in church music. Oh yes, I remember the years of spending the entire week at the church, and even yesterday, when I went to give an organ lesson, I saw the church set up… Read More The week after Easter
Holy cow! An expression of surprise which is mostly used in the United States, Canada, Australia and England—and a euphemism for “Holy Christ,” according to Wikipedia. And that’s what my friend, Karl Bachman, said to me upon hearing the last note of Kenny Broberg‘s piano recital last night in Orvis Auditorium at the University of… Read More Holy cow!
Getting your driver’s license … Graduating from high school … Getting married … Having your first child. These are rites of passage, major life events which have been defined as “a ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone’s life, especially birth, puberty, marriage, and death, and marks the transition from one phase of… Read More A rite of passage
One of my students is giving his very first organ recital—Steven Richardson Severin will play on the Sunday after Easter, April 8 at 2:00 pm at Central Union Church. However, he is no novice; he came to me with Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in piano and decided to make the switch to organ. As Karl… Read More Like a duck to water