I used to think that England had the corner on the Christmas spirit; doesn’t America try to emulate that Dickensian depiction of Christmas each December? But when I got to Germany and saw the Weihnachts Markt in Köln, I updated my opinion: Germany has the corner on the Christmas scene! Never have I seen people … Read more
The following is taken from my final review which I wrote for the Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians. It gives my ideas about the future of the recording industry. This is my last CD column for the AAM Journal. I’ve greatly enjoyed the process of writing reviews, listening to CDs, and consulting with … Read more
Much has been written about Bach – with new biographies coming out nearly every year. When going about writing something about Bach, what can one say that hasn’t been said many times already? Very little, most likely, that the average attender at an All-Bach organ recital would not already know. So I opt to … Read more
Peter Hallock, composer, performer, mystic, philosopher, and church musician, died yesterday afternoon at the age of 89. He died peacefully within moments of returning to his beloved home in Fall City, Washington. He was my closest friend and mentor of 25 years. What follows is a letter to him as he rests beyond the grave. … Read more
When you think about it, it’s a very odd thing for a musician to be spatially separated from his instrument. For virtually all instrumentalists, the instrument itself has to be in hand for it to play at all. I suppose conductor’s have the dilemma of spatial separation, especially when large orchestral and choral works are … Read more
Every church music director has a mixture of excitement and dread in the days and weeks leading up to Easter. Culminating in the Triduum, the last three days of Holy Week, there’s never a question that the work will be anything less than physically and emotionally exhausting. And now that I’m serving the two largest … Read more
I have just finished 26 Children’s Concerts (Adventures in Music) with the San Francisco Symphony, playing excerpts from Strauß (Also sprach Zarathustra), Poulenc (Organ Concerto), and most notably Saint-Saëns (Symphony III – The “Organ Symphony”). Punctuating these performances over the course of several weeks in the Autumn and in January & February of this year, … Read more
This has been a banner winter for me and Monsieur Poulenc; I’ve had the opportunity to play all or part of his organ concerto sixteen times in performance. Once, last November, with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (B.A.R.S.), twice in January with the Santa Cruz County Symphony, and thirteen times with the San Francisco Symphony … Read more