For those of you who are Facebook users, you probably have seen the “On This Day” feature which is meant to spark nostalgia by highlighting content you posted to the site in years past. It pops up in your news feed and shows you photos and status updates you posted on the same calendar day a year or… Read More On This Day
Over the Easter weekend, we bid ‘Aloha’ to singer Lorna Mount, who with her husband, John, moved to Hawaii in 1975. As described by her family, Lorna was charismatic, energetic, always laughing, had the gift of gab, and when she was on steroids due to her ovarian cancer, “was a force of nature!” I know… Read More Aloha, Lorna
All this political talk of “low energy” is in sharp contrast to the weekend we had with organist Greg Zelek — definitely high energy! On Friday night, I invited the members of the AGO Executive Board for a “meet and greet” party and luckily I had nearly the whole day to prepare for it. The… Read More High energy Greg Zelek!
Once a year, the Hawaii Chapter of the American Guild of Organists brings a “rising star” organist to play a concert in our island state. This coming Sunday, March 6 at 2:00 pm, we will hear Greg Zelek play on the 4-manual Aeolian-Skinner organ at Central Union Church, 1660 South Beretania Street, Honolulu. Here’s what we… Read More Rising star, Greg Zelek
Karl Bachman remarked to me, “It’s so Carl!” when he heard the chant Ubi caritas sung in procession from the courtyard at last Sunday’s All Saints Day concert in memory of Carl Crosier. The concert began with seven peals from the courtyard bell, then the slow procession of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu Choir and the Hawaii Vocal… Read More It’s so Carl!
September is the traditional month for starting the school year. (However, in Hawaii, as in other locations, school has been starting earlier and earlier, and in fact started in July this summer!) September is also the month in which musical seasons begin— for example, the opening concert of Early Music Hawaii, Musica Poetica, last weekend which I… Read More Beginnings and endings
Even though the use of the organ in some churches is passé, there still seems to be a need for organists in others. And it seems that organists are on their way of going the way of the dodo bird, or the dinosaur. So when an organist goes on vacation, or needs to have surgery,… Read More Desperately. Seeking. Organists!
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
A story in today’s newspaper reminded me about today’s organ concert, the 24th Annual Midsummer Afternoon Organ Concert, which will take place at Central Union Church at 3:00 pm. When I saw the headline, Island doctor has traveled the globe to help people see, I wondered whether the story was about Dr. Steve Miller, a long-time parishioner at… Read More Organ concert TODAY