Last night I stayed up late, to take advantage of Priority Booking for reserving tickets for the Three Choirs Festival, billed as “the world’s finest choral music.” The booking office opened at 10:00 am in Gloucester, UK, which is 11:00 pm in Hawaii. I logged onto my computer at 10:55 pm and didn’t finish booking… Read More Three Choirs, here we come!
Tonight was the dress rehearsal for choir, orchestra and soloists for Scott Fikse’s last service at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu and if I had to sum it up, I would say it was full of glorious exuberance! Dress rehearsals at church, though, are a little different from those you might experience for an opera… Read More Glorious exuberance!
Matchmaker, Matchmaker,Make me a match,Find me a find,catch me a catchMatchmaker, MatchmakerLook through your book,And make me a perfect match. (From Fiddler on the Roof, by Michele Marsh, Neva Small, and Rosalind Harris) Out of all my activities as an organist and organ teacher in Hawaii, I think my part in playing “matchmaker” is definitely… Read More Matchmaker
From time to time, I have mentioned the name of my Swiss friend, Vreni Griffith. I first noticed her unusual name when I used to stick name labels on our music mailings for the Lutheran Church of Honolulu—that was probably in the early 90s. I later found out “Vreni” was a shortened version of “Varena”… Read More ¡Muchísimas gracias!
And I am a zombie! Even though my plane left at 7:00 am Honolulu time, I had been awake since 2:59 am as my taxi picked me up at 4:45 am. Seems every time I know I have to wake up early, I set my alarm and end up waking up an hour before it… Read More 28 hours to Lausanne
https://youtu.be/0YW-uv3Ibm8 Since I grew up without television, I had never watched the show, “Queen for a Day,” which began as a radio show in 1945 then ran on NBC Television from 1956-1960 and on ABC from 1960-1964. Every show began with the question, “Would YOU like to be Queen for a day?” A number of… Read More Queen for a Day
To follow up on the post I wrote about musical prodigy Alma Deutscher, the person in the 60 Minutes segment was indeed my former student, Robert (Bob) Gjerdingen, who is now a music professor at Northwestern University. It was only a matter of hours that he responded to my post with the comment, “Dear Katherine,… Read More Organ connections
I’ve just come home after the “Motets and Cantatas” concert by the Oahu Choral Society Chamber Choir, and I must say that I heard some fantastic singing tonight. Tonight was the Chamber Choir’s debut, consisting of only 22 singers out of the larger OCS ensemble. The tone of the choir was light and agile, the… Read More A weekend of incredible singing
It is Day Three at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester and the music today was so incredibly beautiful and musically so perfect that I felt that I had died and gone to heaven! The first concert we attended was by Stile Antico, a 12-voice a capella vocal ensemble based in London whose voices were… Read More Died and gone to heaven!
Since we had not booked any concerts at the Three Choirs Festival today, we took a day trip to the city of Bath. After yesterday’s opening service there have been six scheduled concerts plus a lecture, so I know we have missed out but sometimes you have got to give yourself a break! I… Read More Bath Abbey