Would you believe that there’s a Wikipedia entry for “Say cheese,” the phrase that is uttered to make one smile for the camera? What’s more interesting, though, is what is said in other countries. Here are some of my favorites: In China, the word used is 茄子 (qie2zi), meaning “eggplant“. The pronunciation of this word is… Read More Say “Cheese”!
From time to time, people ask me about my former organ student, Joey Fala, and I’m always happy to report that he’s doing fine and still playing the organ. If you click Joey Fala on the tag cloud to the right (and the size of the type indicates about how many posts I’ve written!), you’ll see… Read More The circles of life
And even if you’re not, perhaps you would like to know about a special concert this Friday: The Sacred & the Avant-Garde Joey Fala, organist Friday, February 28 7:00 pm First United Presbyterian Church 1915 Fifth Avenue Troy, NY. 12180 Program: Te Deum (Jeanne Demessieux) Chant de paix (Jean Langlais) Litanies (Jehan Alain) Choral dorien… Read More If you are in New York
Today Naomi Castro posted this photo of bass Keane Ishii on her FaceBook page with the news that he has accepted the position of choir director of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church. She wrote: Bittersweet times this rehearsal. Saying goodbye to my long-time LCH brother, Keane Ishii, who is going on to do great things as choral director… Read More New beginnings
Ordinarily what I’m going to write about today I wouldn’t consider within the confines of this blog. That is to say, in this particular blog I mostly restrict myself to writing about music, my travels as they relate to music, and musical events. But when I ended my nearly 35-year tenure as Organist of the… Read More Guilty pleasure
Shivers of delight ran up and down my spine yesterday as I was listening to the concert by former student, Joey Fala, at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. I was in amazement at his musical maturity, and the ease with which he played extremely difficult passages — the music just oozed out! Here was Joey’s bio in… Read More Beautiful concert, beautiful playing
Undoubtedly you’ve heard of one-name celebrities — people who are recognizable by just their first name — such as Cher and Beyoncé. If there is ever a person in the organ world that could go only by one name and be universally recognized, it’s Joey Fala, who I see changed his FaceBook persona to just… Read More One name organist
Organists don’t retire — they just keep substituting! Even before the tragic event of her husband’s death, Margaret Lloyd had contracted me to play the 7 am service at Central Union Church some time ago since she was still going to be on the mainland. This is the same service that two of my students,… Read More Organists don’t retire . . .
I just heard from former organ student Joey Fala, and am super-proud to announce that he took second place in the Region I and II Regional Competition for Young Organists! Although he was a teeny bit disappointed that he didn’t place first, I think it is remarkable that he went up against students from Juilliard,… Read More Update on Joey Fala
“Teaching Little Fingers to Play the Organ” was the topic of my workshop this afternoon here at the Bakersfield AGO convention and I just about had heart failure! I brought my iPad (really, Carl’s!) all the cables I thought I needed, and an Apple TV so that I could show my Keynote presentation wirelessly. Alas,… Read More Teaching little fingers to play the organ