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
Well, this has been an incredible week, and you must know that we only scratched the surface of all the events and activities that were presented here in Boston at the American Guild of Organists national convention. Altogether there were 38 unique concerts, and 8 varied worship services, 140 workshops and scholarly research programs, more… Read More Saving the best for last
On our last afternoon at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, we returned to the beautiful nave at St. Cecilia’s for a recital of eclectic and most enjoyable music performed by Chelsea Chen. I first met Chelsea many years ago when she was one of the winners of the Region IX competition, and… Read More Already a superstar
Tuesday morning was the opening convocation at the Boston 2014 American Guild of Organists convention and as about 1800 of us organists and choirmasters gathered at the Church of the Holy Cross, I couldn’t help but think that this was not your typical Sunday morning congregation. Of course, how many in our parishes have 1800… Read More Not your typical congregation
The usual scheme of concert programming is to schedule one concerto on a single program. But for the opening of the Boston 2014 American Guild of Organists, we heard FIVE organ concertos in one sitting, and all FIVE played stunningly by James David Christie with the Boston Landmark Orchestra, Christopher Wilkins, conductor. The works were:… Read More Five concertos in one night!