It was just about a month ago that I dragged out my sewing machine and started making cloth face masks—an activity which has consumed me 10-12 hours a day for the last few weeks. The motivation for sewing masks came from my son and daughter-in-law, who complained that the Los Angeles mayor had mandated the… Read More From Honolulu with love …
Yesterday I attended the spring benefit event, Kupu A‘e 2019, for the Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus at the Dole Cannery, which included a buffet lunch, silent auction and entertainment by the HYOC and guests. The Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus is Hawaii’s oldest and most advanced community youth choir, offering a full spectrum of music education… Read More 58 years of teaching kids
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 weekend’s concert at the Mystic Rose Oratory marked the 13th annual Hawaii Masterworks Festival, and completed the 24th season of the Hawaii Vocal Arts Ensemble. You may not know that the HVAE was actually co-founded by three people: David Kayner, Carl Crosier and Tim Carney and the group made its debut with a Big Island… Read More Charter members of HVAE reunite
Last Saturday night, I attended the Oahu Choral Society’s 20th Annual “Vivace” fundraiser and was I ever surprised to find myself seated at the head table! To my immediate right was Karen Kennedy, a choral directing legend in this town, and next to her was Wanda Gereben, and next to her was Nola Nahulu of… Read More In with the bigwigs
Either that, or I have a hole in my head! This morning I was happily reading my email messages, and I opened up the one from the Cathedral of St. Andrew. There I read about the concerts that are happening there this weekend, including this note about myself: This Sunday we are blessed to have… Read More When it rains, it pours
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
As organists, we always have to be prepared with a Plan B, in case Plan A doesn’t pan out. I have written about arriving at the church and having to make last-minute substitutions of stops for when a note is dead or stuck, or having to use a different manual. Or, in the case of… Read More Plan B, revisited