This coming Sunday, Georgine Stark will be giving a recital of spirituals in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month. She will be joined by her husband, violinist Darel Stark and pianist Sachi P. Hirakouji. The program will showcase African-American spirituals arranged by the internationally-renowned pianist, conductor and arranger, Moses Hogan. In… Read More How sweet the sound
This weekend are the Hawaii Opera Theatre’s performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten. And to no one’s surprise, three of four Stark family members will be performing — Darel in the orchestra pit playing violin, and the two kids on stage in the chorus. Georgine will be theatre mom in the audience this time,… Read More Music in their DNA
I’m still basking in the afterglow of last night’s Musica Poetica concert for Early Music Hawaii and over and over again, people came up to me and said, “I felt Carl Crosier was here.” It was not just the repertoire — it was the high standard of music-making that guest conductor Dana Marsh brought the singers and… Read More Carl was here!
Hey! tomorrow morning you will see sackbuts on TV! Yes, our visiting musicians from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music for this Saturday’s Musica Poetica concert will be on the Sunrise morning television show tomorrow! You’ll have to get up early to see them, though, because the sackbuts and cornetto will be playing live at… Read More Sackbuts on Sunrise!
I just finished the postcard for the upcoming Early Music Hawaii concert and thought I’d give you a sneak peek while it is at the printshop. Just in case you didn’t recognize the scene, it’s a drawing of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. While this program will not have a single piece of Johann Sebastian Bach (whose… Read More Upcoming Surround Sound
If you had asked me which hymns are on my “Unfavorites” list, I would have to include “Jesus loves me,” the hymn whose lyrics were written by Anna Bartlett Warner (1827-1915) with a melody by William Batchelder Bradbury (1816-1868). I guess this hymn is on my “Unfavorites” list because I’ve had to play it countless number… Read More Jesus loves me —a song for the dying
So while the weekend has not quite arrived yet, it is the beginning of two crazy, busy weekends where I will play NINE services in just TWO weekends! As I write this, I’m in fact on the way to Honolulu International Airport to pick up Maui organist Clayton Logue who will be my houseguest and… Read More Nine services in two weekends!
You remember the legend of Sisyphus, don’t you?Sisyphus was a bad king whose punishment for his deceitfulness was to push a huge boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back to the bottom again. I had recalled this Greek myth in a prior post about playing Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary over and over and over… Read More Bridging the Centuries
Tonight’s all-women’s Early Music Hawaii concert, “Triumph Against the Odds,” had Carl Crosier’s fingerprints all over it — a total triumph, in terms of programming, execution, and the added bonus of a great audience. Carl selected all the women who sang in it, picked all the music, and even suggested what they should wear — all black… Read More Total ‘Triumph’
No sooner did I put away the extra programs for Carl Crosier’s funeral mass that I am now embroiled in preparation for another program — for Early Music Hawaii’s concert, Triumph Against the Odds, which will be next Friday, September 19th at 7:30 pm, at St. Theresa’s Co-Cathedral. The concert will be dedicated to the memory of… Read More A funeral as publicity for a concert?