It seems hard to believe that it’s been exactly 23 years to the day since my husband Carl Crosier conducted Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Matthäuspassion (St. Matthew Passion) in two ground-breaking performances, March 31-April 1, 2000. Carl’s passion for the work started when I was pregnant with my son, Stephen, and I experienced problems with… Read More A Passion for BWV 244
You’ll never guess what I’m practicing now … a piano version of “Let it go,” from the Disney movie, “Frozen”which I’m adapting to play on the harpsichord. It’s generally not the type of music I play, but it’s all to prepare for a school presentation for Early Music Hawaii in a couple of weeks. The… Read More The fastest way to learn
Yesterday Mark Boyle, who formerly sang tenor in the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, tagged me in this photo of an altarpiece by Matthias Grunenwald: In Mark’s post, he wrote: The basic idea is to take over Facebook with art, in order to disrupt, for a moment, negative news. Anyone who likes this post will be… Read More When life gives you lemons…
According to Christoph Wolff, eminent Bach scholar who gave the pre-concert lecture before tonight’s St. Matthew Passion performance, Bach composed this musical sermon of the Passion Gospel with the intent of “touching our hearts in ways words without music cannot”— he wanted to rouse our emotions. Even though I have personally performed this work on… Read More “… he wanted to touch our hearts”
Of all people I am the last person who should write a restaurant review. Oh, it is true that I have eaten the most delicious and diverse food in some of the world’s top restaurants—most notably Wagyu beef in Tokyo, croissants in Paris, Belgian waffles in Brussels, paella in Barcelona and goulash in Budapest. And… Read More Sushi … in Mexico?
[Yesterday I started to share Carl Crosier’s 2008 article from Cross Accent, the journal of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, “A Personal Journey to the Bach Passions.” Here’s the second part.] “Although the St. Matthew Passion had been presented several times before in Honolulu, it had only been sung in English, in an adapted… Read More St. Matthew Passion: Part Two
A couple of things converged in my universe today. The first is that former LCH chorister Mark Boyle shared on Facebook that he was asked to talk about Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. As he says, he is slightly obsessed with it—he owns 48 different recordings of the work, plus his car’s license plate reads BWV… Read More St. Matthew Passion: a personal journey
You’ve probably heard that hearing is the last sense to lose before dying, and hospice nurses encourage you to talk to the person even though they cannot respond. When my mother had a stroke three years ago and was in the hospital, my brother held the phone up to her ear so that I could say… Read More Bach to the end
We are in Seattle mostly to visit family and friends, and were very excited to learn that we would be able to attend the performances of both Bach Passions (St. Matthew and St. John) on subsequent weekends. According to the program notes, conductor Ludovic Morlot wanted to present “the best version of the piece that can be done with… Read More Superb performance at Benaroya Hall
No, this time we’re not getting ready to perform Bach, this week we are getting ready to listen to Bach. Carl and I are in the Pacific Northwest visiting family and friends and have been listening to Gustav Leonhardt‘s recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion while we have been driving around in the car. On… Read More Getting ready for Bach