You would have thought that after more than fifty years of playing the organ that I would know how to lead congregational singing from the organ — especially know the tempo of Christmas carols. Well, this morning, it was 2000 people in the Lower Gym of Iolani School with whom I played “tug of war”… Read More 2000 against 1 = Déjà vu!
Some of life’s best moments are unscripted — if you tried to plan these things in real life, they wouldn’t have worked out so well or with such great timing. Such a moment happened during the Christmas Day service, my last as Organist at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Pastor Jeff, who normally has his… Read More Unscripted
As the season winds down, there’s one more extra-curricular event for the LCH Choir — and that’s a Joint Evensong with our Episcopal colleagues at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sunday, May 6th at 5:30 pm. The heart of any Evensong service are the singing of two canticles: the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. This week’s service… Read More Jesus College Evensong
With Memorial Day weekend past, we are now shifting into the summer schedule, starting this coming Sunday, June 5th. Last Sunday, Carl said to me, “This is my last 3-service Sunday!” referring to his being at the two morning services (8:00 and 10:30 am) and 9:00 pm Compline service. We switch to a single morning… Read More Shifting into summer
When I was in college, my theory teacher used to have a saying about church organists and their weekly preparation of preludes, postludes, hymns and other incidental music, “like grinding out sausages every week.” This week my sausage-grinding has taken me more work than usual, and I’ve had to “woodshed” several pieces of music. The… Read More The musical art of woodshedding