As we were leaving the service this morning at the Basilica of Immaculate Conception here in Lourdes, France, I made a remark to my sister, “if Carl were here, he’d be in hog heaven!” referring to my late husband who was a church musician extraordinaire. I’m sure that his influence on me STILL is why… Read More Hog heaven!
It was a text conversation last week with concert organist Nathan Laube that has caused a diversion in my daily activities. You see, in booking our air reservations for our European trip, I mistakenly had us arrive one day earlier in Toulouse than the start of our GoAhead tour to France, Spain and Portugal. In… Read More Changing the channel
A few people commented that the service I played last week on May 20, Ascension Day at St. Andrew’s Priory, actually occurred one week past the official date of Ascension Day in the rest of the world, which was May 13, 2021. To be honest, I hadn’t even given it a second thought. I’m presuming… Read More Time warp
As the horrifying images of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral on fire spread throughout the world, there was an overwhelming anxiety in the organ world, “What is happening to the organ?” I was especially alarmed when I saw this drone photo of the nave on fire. Surely, the organ was lost! It is the largest organ… Read More ‘It is a miracle!’
So I am a participant of the 2016 Historical Organ Study tour and we are a group of 39 people from mostly the United States, one from Ireland, and six people are from Australia. 19 of us are organists of widely varying abilities and the rest are listeners. This is rather different from the 1996 tour to… Read More All organs are not created equal!
I did not return from Bourges to my Paris hotel until nearly midnight, so I had a leisurely morning trying to repack my suitcase. We leave for Barcelona at 5:30 am tomorrow! This afternoon I met Andrew Dewar, organist, at the American Cathedral of Paris, also known as The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity.… Read More The American Cathedral
Just this morning when I opened my email, I got a notification that today is Marcel Dupré‘s 126th birthday (May 3, 1886 – May 30, 1971) and it brought back memories of our trip to France, three years ago, and specifically, our visit to Meudon, Dupré’s home, where I had my organ lessons. You might… Read More Happy Birthday, Marcel Dupré!