In my last posting about Jeremy Wong, Naomi Castro, Karol Nowicki, Michal Nowicki and Keane Ishii leaving Hawaii, I didn’t include several other key people in the choral music community who are also moving away. I certainly knew about these other people and the omission certainly wasn’t deliberate on my part —but it’s simply not… Read More More goodbyes
“Bravo to Maestro Dana Marsh and the members of Early Music Hawai‘i on a fantastic (and Spanish!) open to their 2016–17 season!” This was the post on Miguel Felipe’s Facebook page following last night’s concert at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Any fears that there would be only a small audience (owing to slow advance ticket… Read More Standing ovation
Talk about choral music in Hawaii, and I bet the first name that comes to mind is Wanda Gereben, who was honored at last night’s gala 50th anniversary celebration of the Honolulu Chorale. I wrote about Wanda a couple of years ago (“50 Years of Choral Music in Hawaii.”) as the person who organized “The Big… Read More It’s a Wanda-ful World
and the call time for tonight’s University of Hawaii Choirs concert was 6:00 pm. Honolulu had been steamy with rain all day, and you can see by the graph above, that there was 97% humidity and 0 mph wind. I looked out the window and saw all the cars backed up on the freeway, so I left… Read More It was a dark and stormy night…
“Britten? I thought I was only playing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms!” (for the University of Hawaii Choirs concert this weekend). So the day before I left for Italy, I got an email from Miguel Felipe titled “would you hate me if …” and the rest of the message said, “…I told you there was another piece I… Read More Back to Bernstein and Britten
Pastor Jeff Lilley exclaimed, “We used every single chair in the place! We even had to take the chairs from out of my office!” And so the ushers left the door open to the nave, enabling the 25 people who were in the courtyard to hear the concert inside the church, because there were no… Read More SRO Bravissimo!
I thought by now I would be settling in to a nice retired life, watching soap operas and eating chocolate bon-bons, and scheduling only events like a few organ lessons, meals and naps, and then you know what happened — I received an email message from Miguel Felipe saying, “I’ve had you on my mind recently. . . ”… Read More Beware of lunch invitations!
I used to hear people say that after they retired they were were busier than ever before, and don’t know how they used to fit work in! When I so-called “retired” on September 30, I honestly didn’t know how I’d fill my days. I knew that I was going to keep teaching and playing the… Read More Be careful what you wish for!
Today Vreni Griffith and I spent the day addressing the postcards for Carl Crosier’s Memorial Concert on November 1st — and for the fourth day in a row I didn’t read the morning paper until after dinner! In fact, as I write this post, it’s after 10:00 pm and I still haven’t gotten to today’s… Read More By the numbers
Two of the pieces I’m playing in tonight’s University of Hawaii chorus concert are old friends, but the third, “Credo” from Arvo Pärt’s Missa Syllabica, is completely new and the most challenging for me. Tonight’s program will be held at St. Andrew’s Cathedral at 7:30 pm and will feature parts of the mass all composed by… Read More Tintinnabuli