Last Sunday night I attended the “Cantate” concert by the Lutheran Church of Honolulu Choir and Men’s Schola; Wednesday I went to hear the St. Andrew’s Priory girls’ concert; tomorrow night I’ll be playing in the Iolani School Chorus concert; and Saturday night I’ll be at the Hawai’i Symphony concert! ‘Tis the season! Scott Fikse… Read More Spring concert season
[Apologies! My original post stated May 4th! That is because I heard so many ‘May the Fourth be with you’ jokes today!] This Sunday, May 7th, is Good Shepherd Sunday and is so named because of the Gospel reading of the day—the story of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, willing to lay down his life… Read More Good Shepherd Sunday
It’s a musician’s worst nightmare… being in the middle of a concert and the lights go completely black! Yes, it happened in Kona last night, right after the Kona Choral Society had performed the Hallelujah Chorus, and we were in the middle of “Worthy is the lamb.” All of a sudden, the house lights started to… Read More …and then the lights went OUT!
Yesterday was New Year’s Day, and Carl Crosier and I attended the German Vespers service at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. People were genuinely surprised to see us — for we had just said goodbye on Christmas Day. I must admit it was pretty strange seeing and hearing the service from a completely different vantage… Read More A different vantage point
In contrast to the works of Marcel Dupré for All Saints morning service, tomorrow night at Vespers you’ll hear lots of Bach, not only the works by J. S. but also Johann Ernst Bach (1722-1777), who was the son of Johann Bernhard Bach (1676-1749). That would make Johann Ernst a nephew of Johann Sebastian. Johann Ernst… Read More Bach at night
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTpNV5_N4w8&w=480&h=360] Here’s a YouTube version of the Sinfonia I played for the prelude at the 10:30 service — this performance is by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. I think we played it faster! Well, another Holy Week and Easter are in the books, and I can’t believe how many notes I played over the last few days!… Read More Soooo many notes!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eChEWK_4B3Q] I found this excellent performance of Cantata 191 from the J. S. Bach Foundation (http://www.bachstiftung.ch/) on YouTube. Each month, one of Bach’s over 200 cantatas is performed in the town of Trogen, Switzerland. On Christmas Eve at LCH, there will be two fifteen-minute cantatas presented with orchestra in the half-hour before the late… Read More Bach to the familiar
Today, the Third Sunday of Advent, the LCH choir sang two motets by German Lutheran composers, “Ich bin eine Stimme eines Rufers” by Melchior Vulpius (1570-1615) and “Ich taufe mit Wasser” by Andreas Raselius (1563-1602). The first motet was sung for the Offertory and was conducted by Renson Madarang, a new voice in the tenor… Read More Young conductors