A few people commented that the service I played last week on May 20, Ascension Day at St. Andrew’s Priory, actually occurred one week past the official date of Ascension Day in the rest of the world, which was May 13, 2021. To be honest, I hadn’t even given it a second thought. I’m presuming… Read More Time warp
This afternoon I was very happy to hear that Adam Pajan opened the Inaugural Concert of the Rosales Organ (the Sloggett/Wilcox Ohana Organ) with Marcel Dupré’s Cortège et litanie, a piece I learned as a teenager with Dupré himself. Adam said that the piece was a great one to showcase the many colors of an… Read More Rosales puts Kaua‘i on the map!
Of all the questions people have asked me, “Do you still play the organ?” is one of the most remarkable that I can remember. We had just arrived in Paris and immediately set off to find the house of my former teacher, Marcel Dupré. The house is now owned by another family, but the owner… Read More Do you still play the organ?
FDR. JFK. MLK. We love reducing these people’s names down to three letters as evidenced by these representations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Here are some more: LBJ. RBG. AOC. I bet you got real excited when you saw the title of this blog post, though, eh? Your first… Read More AOC at LCH
My friend from the Three Choirs Festival, Rich Arenschieldt, after reading my last post about being grateful to have an organ at home to play, observed that musicians are posting videos of themselves playing at home and sharing them on the Internet: “I love how much music is taking place and how supportive musicians are… Read More In quiet joy
When I was 17 and away in Paris, France to study with virtuoso, Marcel Dupré, I had only one focus—playing the organ. I quickly found a place to practice, L’Eglise Étranger, which gave me virtually unlimited practice time to learn the works of Bach, Dupré and Franck, which was what I was studying in those… Read More Like the old days
On my way to the Cathedral of the Christ of Light, I got a text from John Renke: The cathedral Rector had a massive heart attack after the Saturday evening mass and died last night. You’re coming to a very interesting Sunday here! I heard more of the story at the announcement to the parish… Read More A day at the Cathedral
It was again another gorgeous day in Seattle—the sky is blue and clear, no rain and it’s cool, in the lower 60s F. When I walked into St. Mark’s, the choir was rehearsing the Kyrie in a mass setting by Uģis Prauliņš (b. 1957), a Latvian composer who “is noted for his powerful and idiosyncratic… Read More Outside the bounds of time
My long-time friend, Edith Ho, formerly of the Church of the Advent in Boston, passed along this video of the recently-rebuilt organ at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the world of organs and organists. Although the video is narrated in French by… Read More The organ of Notre Dame Cathedral
Drum roll, please … Here is the video for fantastic Joey Fala at the Woolsey Hall organ at Yale University for his graduate organ recital! Here’s the program, with notes found on the internet: Edward Elgar, Pomp and Circumstance, March No. 4 in G Major, op. 39 This is a transcription of one of Elgar’s… Read More Joey Fala at Woolsey Hall