Just six days ago, we received this notice: Dear Ticket Holder, We are delighted to announce that we will be welcoming His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to the performance of Dream of Gerontius on the evening of Tuesday 25 July. As President of the Three Choirs Festival since 2001, Prince Charles’ picture was on… Read More A royal visit for The Dream of Gerontius
Today began with a visit to Spetchley Gardens, a place where Edward Elgar was a friend of the Berkeley family, owners, often staying and enjoying some fishing in the garden lake. He was so inspired by the garden that he composed The Dream of Gerontius, which we hear tonight. 2017 celebrates 160 years since the birth of… Read More ‘Elgar was here’
I was already looking forward to tonight’s performance of the Saint-Saëns ‘Organ Symphony’ because it was one of my husband Carl’s and my ‘songs’ when we were dating. Years later I was fortunate enough to play this piece with the Honolulu Symphony, and my usual preparation included playing a recording of it at least a… Read More Not another Saint-Saëns!
Thrilling. Exhilarating. Hair-raising. Those were some of the reactions to last night’s performance of Mendelssohn St. Paul at the Three Choirs Festival Worcester. Wha-a-a-t? Mendelssohn? I must confess, that until last night, and only knowing Mendelssohn Elijah, which I consider a sleeper, I wouldn’t think of Mendelssohn as exciting. Over and over again I heard… Read More Mendelssohn St. Paul
I was intrigued by the listing of the organ prelude at Worcester Cathedral’s Sung Eucharist today: Prelude and Fugue on BACH —J.S. Bach (1685-1750). As far as I know, Bach never wrote a prelude and Fugue on these four pitches: B-flat, A, C, B-natural. As the organist began, however, I immediately recognized the Franz Liszt… Read More Sunday at Worcester Cathedral
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