Today is May 30, 2021. That means it has been exactly 50 years since French virtuoso, Marcel Dupré, played his last Sunday service at Saint-Sulpice, went to his beloved home in Meudon for lunch and died peacefully about 7 pm that evening. I know that I recently wrote a post about my former teacher, “Time… Read More Celebrating Marcel Dupré
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
Since I can’t travel to Europe at this time, I’m continuing the long process of updating my old posts to relink the photos, a time-consuming task but one which is bringing back many wonderful memories. In many cases, I’m adding even more pictures to those I had posted previously. Luckily, every one of my 43,000… Read More Armchair traveling
Many people think that because I spent thirty-five years of my life playing the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church Honolulu, I only play Bach and baroque music. That can’t be farther from the truth — I learned on a big Casavant organ at the Hollywood First Methodist Church and can push pistons and manipulate the… Read More Cortège et litanie
Just this morning when I opened my email, I got a notification that today is Marcel Dupré‘s 126th birthday (May 3, 1886 – May 30, 1971) and it brought back memories of our trip to France, three years ago, and specifically, our visit to Meudon, Dupré’s home, where I had my organ lessons. You might… Read More Happy Birthday, Marcel Dupré!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRcMtB27z7E?rel=0] Marcel Dupré plays his Cortège et Litanie at Saint-Sulpice. January 22, 1965. That’s the date my organ teacher wrote in my music to assign me Marcel Dupré’s Cortège et Litanie. To be honest, at that point in my life I didn’t know what a cortege was, or a litany either, or that one day… Read More Dupré in the morning
Over the weekend, Joey Fala and I have been working on the repertoire which will be performed at the July 9th PipeWorks, the educational outreach program of the American Guild of Organists, which introduces the pipe organ to young people. Joey asked me to play something “flashy,” so I have decided to play Marcel Dupré’s… Read More Marcel Dupré and his house organ
When I was seventeen, I had the great fortune of going to Paris and studying with the French virtuoso, Marcel Dupré. Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have this experience, and even though I thought I was pretty good at the time, I really knew NOTHING much about… Read More Marcel Dupré, organist extraordinaire