The Sunday after Easter is sometimes referred to as Low Sunday. One website described it this way: The word “low” may serve to contrast it with the “high” festival of Easter on the preceding Sunday. Or, the word “low” may be a corruption of the Latin word laudes, the first word of a sequence used in… Read More The week after Easter
After playing for two services each Sunday for the last three weeks at Holy Nativity, this coming Sunday I’m going to be back at Waiokeola Congregational Church filling in for Gloria Faltstrom. You remember that the last time I was scheduled to play there, I couldn’t get the organ to turn on and ended up… Read More Lazy organist? or one music fits all!
https://youtu.be/DECcjYlO5gY That’s how far away Honolulu is from Warsaw, where I’m sitting in my hotel room now. In terms of time, we are 12 hours ahead of my home in Honolulu, where my former student, Joey Fala, gave the rededicatory recital at Kawaiaha’o Church last night. Already though, several video clips have been sent to… Read More From 7,351 miles away
This weekend is the recital of my former student, Joey Fala, at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Kula, Maui on July 8 at 6:30 pm. This is Joey’s second recital appearance there and you won’t want to miss his concert as he weaves his magic. I say “magic,” because one needs a lot of creativity… Read More Meanwhile, back home …
If you’re guessing that I spent yesterday morning playing the organ at Kawaiaha’o Church, you guessed right! On Friday, I got a call from Nola Nahulu, the director, saying that the organist, Buddy, had pneumonia and wouldn’t be able to make it on Sunday. Oh, and by the way, she was going to send me… Read More Quick study
I was already awake and had eaten my breakfast when I went to retrieve my phone messages about 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Apparently a phone call had came in at 6:10 am and I saw that choral director, Nola Nahulu, had left me a voicemail. Good morning, Kathy. It’s Nola, 6:10 already. Buddy is really, really sick and… Read More All in a day’s work
Last night I received a phone call from the organist of Kilohana United Methodist Church, where I will be the guest organist in a couple weeks. I asked her if the organ had multiple memory levels so that I could set up my own combinations. I was glad when she said I could have any level… Read More Old tricks vs. something new
Today is the first of March, and as I look over just my Sunday schedule of organ gigs, it’s going to be madness! In several instances I’m going to have to draw upon some long dormant memories and experiences to get through all this. Today, for example, I’ll be playing a Japanese wedding at historic… Read More March madness
All over town, events were being cancelled because of the threat of Hurricane Ana to the Hawaiian Islands. But the planners of the BIG SING event for the local chapter of the American Choral Directors Association decided to go ahead as scheduled. A gentle rain was falling as many entered historic Kawaiaha’o Church, and what a… Read More BIG SING is Big Success!
Say the word, “Choral Music” and “Hawaii” in the same sentence, and inevitably, you will bring up the name Wanda Gereben, whom I met some 40 years ago when I was her accompanist at St. Andrew’s Priory School and Hawaii Children’s Opera Chorus (Egad! that was EONS ago!) Wanda was the founder and executive director of the… Read More 50 Years of Choral Music in Hawaii