I was privileged to watch a livestream of Naomi Castro’s graduate recital today—if you look at the Tag Cloud on the right column, I’ve written about her frequently. She grew up at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu (in fact, I played the organ for her parents’ wedding!), and her mother and father sang in the… Read More “All in one piece!”
Normally when you think of someone offering an organ concert on Halloween, you expect to hear Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” or some other organ piece deemed scary. Come of think of it, how is it that piece became associated with ghouls and goblins, anyway? According to James Bennett, II, Bach’s most famous… Read More Halloween fun
A couple of weeks ago I received an email message from the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra with the enticing title: Offer of work with the Hawaii Symphony Alas, it was an invitation to play the organ part of the Albinoni “Adagio” at their concert at The Hawai’i Theatre. Most unfortunately, I would have to turn it… Read More Albinoni on a theatre organ?
While the numbers of people were few, the enthusiasm was unmistakable of those who were brave enough to come out to a concert in these frightening times of the coronavirus pandemic. There was no problem keeping a “social distance” from other audience members in the large sanctuary. I’m speaking about yesterday’s absolutely phenomenal organ recital… Read More WOW! Absolutely phenomenal!
Organist Monica Czausz is in Hawaii this weekend (and is my delightful houseguest!) and when she arrived at the airport, she was greeted not only with a flower lei but also a comprehensive schedule of her time here, accounting for all of her practice time but also who was taking and picking her up from… Read More “That’s what we do”
Last night was the opening Welcome Dinner for the Hawaii Chapter American Guild of Organists, and look at the big crowd we had! People literally came out of the woodwork—and for some people, it’s been DECADES since they have attended a meeting of local organists. (By the way, not everyone was in the picture! Some… Read More They came out of the woodwork!
So exclaimed Esther Yoo as she conducted the opening Sinfonia from Bach Cantata 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden, in the spacious Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa. As you can see by the photo above, my little organ is placed front and center and gosh! It sounds absolutely gorgeous in there. Having heard the organ in the… Read More Bach sounds FANTASTIC!
One constant in our Hawai’i Chapter American Guild of Organist concerts is the “spiel” given by Karl Bachman at intermission to encourage people to give offerings. I always look forward to hearing these little “sermonettes” — filled with humor, and sometimes I’ve gotten a shout-out. Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s concert with Adam Pajan:… Read More A HUGE leap of faith!
61 people “liked” my post when I asked this question on my Facebook page with some photos. Only one person, Susan Haas, seemed to know what I was up to when I showed off my dining table. If you count the number of plates, you will come up with the number nine—which is how many… Read More Guess who’s coming to dinner?
And I haven’t even gotten to Amsterdam yet! I left Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon and stopped briefly in Los Angeles and Houston before arriving at Raleigh-Durham airport about noon on Wednesday. Of course I didn’t sleep a wink—what was running through my head was Olivier Messiaen’s L’Ascension suite from Steven Severin’s recital on Sunday! Even… Read More Tulip-crazy