Sorry, no art today! I have been so busy the last 8 days (except Sunday, which was a rest day for me) it’s ridiculous. You may ridicule if you like.

Saturday: Pipe Organ Workshop (POW) with Niel

Everybody loves Niel. He’s super-enthusiastic, and he knows tons of things. Of course, I was hanging out with John (Nick’s student) all day and he knows tons of things too, even though he doesn’t have much opportunity to actually practice like he would like to. (I was a volunteer at the event; I looked after some kids while Niel and Nick taught some other kids) But everybody loves Niel, and I wish he’d been around for longer than Sat-Mon. Oh well, he remembered me!

Sunday: RCCO, Day 1

First challenge of the day: play for two churches with a hideous cough that had prevented me from sleeping more than two hours the night before. Result: fail. Oh, my first church went okay. But the second church… I forgot to change my slip-ons for organ shoes until about Communion, (which is a big recommendation for my slip-ons, even though they pinch after a few hours) and the Holy Holy was in 4/4 and I played the intro in 6/8 and up a whole tone.

Second challenge of the day: get through registration, Evensong at CCC, and a concert without collapsing. Result: middling. I had acquired some cough candies that alleviated the hideous hacking somewhat. I got registered for the RCCO convention, which includes a free mug (whoo!) and a beautiful bag that I used for the rest of the week, and I bought a copy of Raminsch’s Mass in C minor, which looks like it would be very pretty, at least in the Kyrie, and also a CD of Denis Bédard playing his own organ works at Notre-Dame in Québec. He does the Toccata FAST. Like, REALLY FAST. Then it was off to Evensong, which was absolutely gorgeous, so hats off to the St. Christopher Singers and Michael Gormley. I had a brief crisis of self-confidence, based on no sleep and sick and feeling bad about church in the morning and not having anyone to talk to all day, but that’s not important because it didn’t last long. Then there was a concert at CCC, at which was played much great music including some stuff by Asian composers that no one over here has ever heard before (they’ve probably heard of the composers, if not the music, anyway) and also a composition by some Vancouver composer and flugelhornist and also the Poulenc organ concerto. So I got to talk to Hollas afterwards, because he was in it. He told me many funny things about Holland where he is studying.

Monday: RCCO, Day 2

Paul Halley is FUNNY. Never met him before, but he was funny. Then I went to the workshop on Tracker Organs of the Pacific Northwest (meaning in the US) and it was okay. After lunch was a concert by Dan Miller at St. Andrew’s Pres, and it was pretty impressive. I’ve never seen such pedal technique before, I don’t think. Of course I have a terrible memory so I could be wrong. He played a Scott Joplin arrangement, which was really cool, and also an arrangement of the Barber Adagio for Strings, which he played more sensitively than some string groups I’ve heard (not a lot, but some – although I disagreed with his rubato). This was in addition to regular organ repertoire like some crazy piece called Pageant by some guy called Leo Sowerby. Then I went to the workshop by Niel, which was about “how to communicate in the 21st Century”, except not in those words, but he showed us how he’s on the Borg and Twitter and stuff, and how reputed organizations also use those functions. Then I met up with my page turner, and I accidentally dragged him all over the church forty-three times while looking for my hat, which I had left in the balcony but someone found it and put it in a prominent position by the organ where I didn’t look. Anyway, I found it, and then we went to practice at Alix Goolden on the Rodgers, and we set some pistons, and I was all stressed because I didn’t feel ready for when I had to play the stuff I was playing on Wednesday, but he helped a lot. And then he went home again because he had rehearsals in Vancouver on Tuesday. I went to the concert at St John’s, which was Paul Jacobs, and it was completely astounding what he did with that organ. He played the whole concert from memory and it sounded fantastic and he played a Bach fugue as an encore and he said “Let me just figure out which fugue!” because he has them ALL memorized, and I didn’t recognize it off the top of my head, but it was a really nice fugue.

Tuesday: RCCO, Day 3

Workshops starting at 8:30, woof. First up was one about Japanese harpischord and organ music, which was quite interesting, and then an organist health seminar by Steven Bensen who is also terribly funny. He forgot about orange juice, though. Note that I wish I could have gone to ALL the workshops, but there were three at once for every time slot, so I had to settle for four out of twelve. Then there was a concert by Nick re-inaugerating the Casavant in the Alix Goolden, which was standing room only for the audience (woot), and I turned pages, and it was on TV on the local channel and Dad had recorded it by the time I got home that evening. Also I didn’t cough during the performance. In the afternoon was open organs, among other things, so I went to St. Andrew’s Catholic Cathedral and tried it for the first time, and then helped Kathleen set up for Taizé… went back to Alix Goolden, discovered that I had memorized half my music for Wednesday just from playing it lots, and then went back to the Cathedral for Taizé. It was lovely. Went home, had supper, saw Nick on TV, went back out for Tong Soon Kwak from Korea playing on the CCC organ. She moves like May Ling. I wonder if that’s an Asian thing, or if they had a similar teacher at some point, or if that’s something they both discovered on their own? Anyway, I was sooooo tired I couldn’t really properly enjoy the music. I still enjoyed it, but if you ask me what she played, I will have to look it up because I really have no idea. In my defense I’d been out of the house for about 15 hours and I still had homework to do. But it all got done in the end.

Wednesday: RCCO, Day 4, and VPC rehearsal 1

Wednesday was a little less crazy. Started still at 8:30 with a talk by the CMC representative, and then we all went down to CCC to look at the littler organs there, and then over to St. Anne’s Academy and then Church of Our Lord (abbreviated COOL). At the last, Steven was dressed as the first choir director. So funny. I mean, entirely appropriate, but he is really funny. Told us a story about Fran. Anyway, then was lunch, and then I went back to Alix Goolden for more practice, and waited around for my page turner to show up again… he did, and I made recordings of me playing all my pieces. There were little slips in them, not least because I didn’t realize beforehand that my palazzo pants are super-slippery and I ended up sliding off the front of the organ bench whenever I shifted. The recordings will be on YouTube in the next week. Theeeeen… well, we looked at the displays set up, and I found two more Vancouver Centre Hallowe’en pictures of him in addition to the one I’ve already seen, and he has a different sword in all three of them… which is so cool. Then came the Convocation, and I played my 22 minutes of music, and it went really really well, and I couldn’t have done it without Michael, because he did all the registrations for the Duruflé Fugue in addition to actually turning the pages. So Convocation went on for a long while, and Mom whisked us home for supper and back off to St. John’s for the Vic Phil Choir rehearsal, and we showed up about 20 seconds before rehearsal started, which was not enough time for Michael to set pistons. So that was super stressful, but the Vierne went decently to his satisfaction, at least. The sopranos were awfully flat, though.

Thursday: VPC rehearsal 2

This day, Michael was playing in the Vancouver Centre’s RCCO convention presentation, so I had to cover the rehearsal. Fortunately, the Faure is not tooooo hard if you have an idea what it’s supposed to sound like, and the Bach… well, I left out a ton of notes. What is funny is that the regular rehearsal pianist, who was supposed to help, was late, so he asked someone to cover for HIM and that someone only got the music on Thursday, just like me. Ya. Some of the younger members of the choir (people actually my age! As in with not-grey hair! Nothing against grey hairs, but it’s a little surprising when there are people without them in a choir like that) came and asked me if all the pipes on the organ were real or if some of them were just for show. (they’re all real)

Friday: VPC rehearsal 3

This day was massive. I was at the church after class at about 1:00, practiced Beethoven for about an hour, took a nap for about an hour, and then opened the side door for Michael just as he came around the corner. …No, I’m not psychic. I just figured he’d be showing up about then, and got lucky at guessing. Then we practiced pretty much everything for three hours, told me all about the craziness on Thursday, grabbed a sandwich at Subway, and then had a three hour rehearsal with the choir. Everyone was very tired, but Peter drove us to the hotel Michael was staying in and we went to the bar and ate fries and talked about stuff for another hour with some other choir people including another person from Vancouver named Michael. (they’re everywhere!)

Saturday: VPC concert

Rehearsed from around 3:30 to 5:30, and then went to Nando’s Portuguese Flame-Grilled Chicken for supper. Really good food. If you haven’t been yet, I recommend it. It’s like fast food but with actual food being served. I had it with no spiciness. Then came final choir rehearsal, and I got changed into black, and then waited for the audience to fill the hall… It was pretty full. It might have been more full than the Paul Jacobs concert. The whole concert was pretty good, especially when you consider how much rehearsal actually went on. They gave us organists each a yellow rose, which mine is very pretty where it sits on the table, although I noted yesterday it is the same colour as orange juice. Anyway, there were homemade cookies at the reception, which were tasty. Plans were tentatively set for a Bard on the Beach expedition in August, but nothing definite, not least because Leslie wasn’t there. And then I went home and tried to sleep so I can finally recover from coughing. (it’s going away now, no worries.)

So that is my crazy organ week. It was full of music and performing and talking and listening and sometimes food (and sometimes coughing) and catching up with friends and stress and getting rid of stress and lots and lots of organs. It was fabulous.

Now I have to go be a pianist for a bit. Like a year or so. See ya!

(not much art in progress at the moment; updates will be sporadic)