I had a nice surprise after church yesterday.  The man pictured above, Doug McQueen, came up to me and began telling me how much he liked the way I did the service. I asked if he was an organist and he said he was. I found out later (looking on Facebeek) that he retired after forty years of service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Peoria Illinois.

He gave me detailed compliments on much of the service. He liked the prelude and postlude and the way I accompanied the hymns. He was also the first organist I have met lately who  recognized the name Martin Pasi. Mr. McQueen said that he had played the Cassavant at Hope and commented that with all the organs hope has (2 in Dimnent, the new Cassavant and the Walker in Huw’s studio) Hope was turning into an organ mecca. I hadn’t thought of it like that. It was refreshing to hear it actually.

I am thinking of checking out the organ practice room situation at the new Hope College Music Building. I haven’t been through it yet. I am seriously considering going on my knees and asking Huw if I could practice there while my organ is out of commission. Rhonda has already offered Hope Church. It would be good to have a few spots up my sleeve. Many times organ practice rooms are empty at colleges I have attended.

Mr. McQueen didn’t mention it, but after the gospel yesterday (link to readings), I improvised a dissonant illustration of the divisiveness in the gospel story. After the last chord with Jen in the pulpit and ready to preach, the congregation laughed. I figured they were laughing at the music. Eileen said they might have been laughing at the fact that Jen had bumped the mic right at the end of music. At any rate, it got their attention and Jen moved smoothly into her homily.

I came home and looked for a recording on YouTube. I remember hearing Lang Lang and a young student play a Schubert piano buy roche diazepam online duet at the Proms a few years ago. I wanted to hear it again and think about printing it up and having available for duets.

Here is the two part video of their performance.

I do like this quite a bit. I printed it out and from her response to an email, Rhonda sounds interested.

Since I have scheduled my soprano soloist to sing a Biblical Song by Dvorak on Sunday, I have asked her to bring her viola and play a little arrangement of the famous Largo from his New World Symphony. My organ arrangement in is Db so I dug around and found one online. IMSLP has an arrangement for violin and piano but it’s not public domain in the US, so I landed on a nice clean arrangement for recorder and piano in G major (link to pdf).

I am meeting with Laurie (the singer/viola player) today at 5 PM. I have until then to put this arrangement in Finale. I will probably transpose it to D major and put the recorder part in the viola clef. I was trying to avoid work on Mondays but I enjoy messing with Finale.

Facing the music: David Sawer | Music | The Guardian

I like this interview mostly because most if not all of the music Sawer mentions is embedded into it. cool. I will probably play some of them later.

Join the Army and Choose Whichever God You Like – The New York Times

Sarah Vowell once again on the pages of the NYT!

 Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different?

This article by Ezra Klein helped me quite a bit. I am of course planning on voting for Clinton but not without misgivings. Klein provides insight into her warts and all. I think her ability to listen is a valuable attribute as well as her experience in governing. I didn’t watch the actual interview which is linked.

The Best Wireless Routers of 2016 | PCMag.com

This went by on my facelessbook feed. I bookmarked it to think about.