When I haven’t seen people for awhile, generally they ask me two questions: “What are you working on?” “Where are you going on your next trip? Well, I’m glad you asked! I am pleased to tell you that Scott Fikse asked me to play the organ on his last Sunday at the Lutheran Church of… Read More Fingers crossed!
This has been a week of reunions, a celebration of long time friendships that have lasted a lifetime. These friendships have all happened because of our common interest in the pipe organ. My current houseguest is Barbara Adler, whom I met in December 1972 on a visit to Hawai’i in anticipation of my move here.… Read More Old friends
Apparently a number of my friends were unaware that our mutual friend, Preston Larson, died last December of Covid. The post I wrote, “RIP Preston Larson 1942-2020” somehow got overlooked in the busy Advent/Christmas season. So if you’d like to read his obituary, you can click the link. I guess I must have been pretty… Read More A really good friend
Thanks to the miracle of the Internet and Facebook, I was able to catch a glimpse of my former student, Joey Fala, at the Yale commencement ceremonies held last week as he was granted a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance. I had the same feelings as when my husband and I held our… Read More We did this!
Tonight was former student Joey Fala’s final graduate recital at Woolsey Hall, Yale University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Music degree. Being here has been the greatest thrill of my life, as it must have been Joey’s greatest thrill of playing on this magnificent organ. First, about the organ: The… Read More Absolutely magnificent!
Chills ran up and down my spine as I sat in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on the Green, in Norwalk, CT, where former student, Joey Fala, is the Organ Scholar. For me hearing him play a liturgical service, masterfully improvising on the hymn tunes which either came before or after the various parts of the… Read More Sunday at St. Paul’s
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!
I finally got a chance to sit down and read the December 2014 issue of The American Organist (also known as TAO) and a few names jumped out at me. The first one which caught my eye was the picture of Barbara Adler, who is Treasurer/Councillor for Finance and Development. Many people don’t know how instrumental… Read More Organists I know in TAO
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!
Over the weekend, there was an article published by the Kansas City Star which has been widely shared among organists: “Pipe organs soar, but number of players dips.” According to the article, the number of college organ students is shrinking, despite the number of new instrument installations. It cites the multi-million dollar University of Kansas organ… Read More Endangered species