Last night belonged to Don Conover, retired Minister of Music and organist of the Church of the Crossroads. It was the first ever fundraiser for the Honolulu Chorale, a volunteer community chorus which has been in existence for forty-nine years and which has never charged admission to its concerts. Jeremy Wong, the interim choral director at… Read More Don’s night
Last week, my former student, Joey Fala, texted me about wanting to share “some breaking news,” and was eager to phone me. When we finally did talk, he wanted to confirm some of the details of his engagement here, for the fortieth anniversary of the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. That will be… Read More Super exciting news!
Every so often, I have the feeling that Carl Crosier is trying to prod me into not forgetting him, not that THAT would ever happen. I already wrote about Derek Chester‘s sending me the article from the San Francisco-based examiner.com, in which the writer used my photo of Derek and Carl at the Boston Early… Read More Popping up again!
Four years ago, our visiting organist, Hyunju Hwang, had heard about a live jam session happening every Thursday night at the Hilton Pasadena and decided to check it out. She was very curious to learn what kind of music-making could happen with the premise that anyone could join in the jam session and amazingly, some great music ensued. One… Read More Jamming with a church organist
You meet all kinds of people at music conventions and you never know where your conversations will lead. In fact it was fifteen years ago that I met organist and Lutheran pastor, Karl Bachman, at a national conference of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians in Richmond, VA. That was in July 2000. Just a few… Read More A conversation on the bus
Guess what — Pentecost 2015 will mark the 40th Anniversary of the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu! I can’t believe it, yes, I was there forty years ago at the dedication of this organ. (No, I didn’t play — I only came to listen.) It was absolutely crazy — more than 600… Read More Upcoming 40th Anniversary!
Last night, I was with “my peeps” — the members of the Hawaii Chapter American Guild of Organists. Our Dean, John Renke, hosted a New Year’s reception at the Pacific Club, and during the evening, a photo was taken of five of us, as shown here. All of the ladies above are organists, with the… Read More The Merry Widows
Yesterday, I spent part of the afternoon with Betsy McCreary, whose late husband, John McCreary, was my immediate predecessor at Iolani School and our colleague at St. Andrew’s Cathedral for over thirty years. Betsy had invited me to peruse John’s huge inventory of organ music with the thought of giving some of it to my students. I gladly… Read More Anyone want organ music?
Chances are, most people in the pew have not heard the name Wilbur Held (b. 1914) but if anyone has come to any services I’ve played, the odds are pretty good that he or she has heard his music. That’s because as a composer, he has written a ton of organ music which is used widely… Read More Wilbur Held, 100 years old
From time to time, my late husband, Carl Crosier, used what I deemed “quaint” or “old-fashioned” American expressions. For example, he used to refer to our undeveloped basement in Kaneohe as “the back forty.” When something was not quite right, or askew, he would say that it was “cattywampus.” (In Hawaii, you would say that… Read More Visiting firemen