Organist Monica Czausz is in Hawaii this weekend (and is my delightful houseguest!) and when she arrived at the airport, she was greeted not only with a flower lei but also a comprehensive schedule of her time here, accounting for all of her practice time but also who was taking and picking her up from… Read More “That’s what we do”
The decision has been made, and I no longer have to wonder about how to manage not getting coronavirus while on a plane. Today I logged onto the website of my travel agent where I saw this message: Owing to the evolving COVID-19 situation and government travel advisories and restrictions, Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Costsaver, Brendan… Read More Out of my hands
Lately it seems that my life is nothing but hosting one houseguest after another—my niece and nephew from Virginia are with me this weekend to attend a wedding in Honolulu. Already they represent (can you believe it!) my fourth set of houseguests since the 15th of January, and in a couple of weeks I’ll welcome… Read More Monica Czausz, concert organist
”You mean, you would play your concert for only one or two people?” Indeed we would, and in fact, Jieun Kim Newland and I actually gave the Dueling Bach concert a total of five times (!) and luckily it has gotten easier each time. We did two run-throughs (in front of a few people) before… Read More Bach—the second time around
While I was in Europe a month ago, I was contacted about the organ music library of long-time Hawaii Chapter American Guild of Organists member, Donald Matsumori who died on May 17, 2019. His family was trying to clear his house and some people suggested that I might have students who could make use of the organ… Read More Passing it on
When I was at the Orange County American Guild of Organists convention, I was intrigued by how my former student Joey Fala had pasted his copies of music into a large artist’s sketch pad. It was then possible to perform the entire concert without a page turner. By reducing the size of the music slightly,… Read More Paper engineering
I left Los Angeles on the Fourth of July, just missing the first of two earthquakes by less than an hour! My shuttle picked me up at 5:45 am, and my flight took off at 9:00 am from LAX—and the first earthquake struck at 9:36 am. I understand from Fred Merchant that there was pandemonium… Read More Out in the nick of time!
This has already been a fantastic convention but the Steering Committee of the 2019 AGO West Region Convention absolutely saved the best for last with the closing night performance by Paul Jacobs, one of the youngest department chairs appointed to the famed Juilliard School of Music and the only organist with a Grammy. This is… Read More Saving the best for last, Paul Jacobs!
Tonight was the opening event of the 2019 American Guild of Organists West Region Convention in Irvine, CA. It was billed as the Opening Service in the convention program, but as a concert in the app. [Things have certainly gone high tech at AGO conventions!] This being a worship service, we were admonished not to… Read More Concert or service?
You wouldn’t ordinarily laugh during a classical concert, but a lot of people couldn’t help themselves last Saturday night at the “Think Outside the Bach” concert. It came during Michal Nowicki‘s reading of PDQ Bach’s biography (in his beautifully accented English), who is described by PDQ’s creator, Peter Schickele as “the son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Anna… Read More You wouldn’t ordinarily laugh …