Since I arrived in San Francisco early on Monday morning, I can honestly say that I haven’t stopped moving except to catch a few winks before getting up early and doing it all over again. For example, yesterday after Joey Fala’s concert, I boarded the bus to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley to hear… Read More Wall-to-wall activities
“Kathy! What are you doing here?!” Those were the first words from organist Jonathan Dimmock, whose recital I attended this afternoon at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in Los Angeles. Before going on this trip, I checked the internet to see if there were any good concerts to attend, and was absolutely delighted… Read More Surprise reunion — Surprise!!
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
This past weekend, I have been a busy beaver and have found myself working on four separate projects —three of them ultimately will lead to musical events in several churches. I’m guessing it was Carl Crosier’s idea many years ago to produce a color postcard to publicize our special concerts and services — and you can probably guess… Read More The busy beaver
This morning I attended the 11:00 am service at Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood, CA where I came to hear organist Hyunju Hwang play the organ. You may remember that it was a year ago last summer that I heard her stunning playing at the Bakersfield AGO convention (see my post “The power of music”… Read More The exit hymn
I happened to be sitting next to Hyunju Hwang, the virtuoso Korean organist, at the post-convention recital by Dorothy Young Riess, and when I told her Dorothy was 81, she said, “No! She looks like she’s maybe 60!” Dorothy played a most ambitious program at Olive Drive Church, another mega-church complex here in Bakersfield, and… Read More My favorite things
This afternoon I attended perhaps the most powerful presentation I ever seen or heard in my life. The artist was Ken Medema, a blind pianist who for four decades, has inspired people through storytelling and music. He said that we as church musicians have the task of connecting the stories with the music. He played a… Read More The power of music