Tonight was Early Music Hawaii’s dress rehearsal for tomorrow night’s concert: Rome 1600! The Glories of the Italian Baroque. The concert features the Early Music Hawaii Ensemble of Singers and Players, conducted by Scott Fikse. The great dramas of early Baroque Rome were the Oratorios—operatic illustrations of biblical stories, the lives of martyrs or principles… Read More Rome 1600—A grand spectacle!
As you may recall from my last post, last week I played for 5 church services. This week I have 5 evening rehearsals (4 for Early Music Hawaii and 1 for St. Mark’s). Tonight was the instrumental rehearsal for Early Music Hawaii. I am scheduled to teach 5 organ lessons this week. I will play… Read More Magic number 5!
“An embarrassment of riches” — that’s how Father Paul Lillie described the special Mass services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church this month. No sooner had I returned to Hawaii from Greece last Friday, I was faced with a FIVE-service week: My usual three Sunday services: 9:00 am Nu‘uanu Congregational Church 11:00 am St. Mark’s Episcopal… Read More “An embarrassment of riches”
On our last night in Athens, our EF GoAhead tour group took one final group picture before walking across the street for our farewell dinner. I must say that this was really a nice bunch of people and we seemed to get along well. Someone asked how we liked the food, and I responded that… Read More 28 hours to Honolulu
Today we visited the Acropolis of Athens, which includes the famous landmark, the Parthenon. The first thing we have learned on this trip is that many cities have acropolises — this one in Athens is probably the most famous, but “acropolis” means “high city.” I did visit the Acropolis in Athens five years ago, but… Read More Last day in Athens
What is a Greek evening? Unlimited FOOD, unlimited WINE, unlimited DANCING, unlimited PLATE BREAKING, and unlimited FUN! All this we enjoyed at the family-owned Zafiro Experience last night. OPA! OPA is a Greek Word that may be used as an ‘Exclamation’, or ‘Utterance’, or ‘Declaration’, or ‘Affirmation’ or a lovingly gentle way of telling you to… Read More A Greek evening … OPA!
St. Paul spent about eighteen months in Corinth during his second missionary journey and the new believers became the Corinthian Church to which the letters of First and Second Corinthians were written by Paul. Today we visited Corinth on our way to Athens, a city of great importance in the ancient Roman world; its strategic… Read More St. Paul in Corinth
Today we visited an open air theatre with incredible acoustics in Epidaurus. Constructed in the late 4th century BC, it is considered to be the most perfect ancient Greek theatre with regard to acoustics and aesthetics. We heard examples of this today, when a person on the stage would whisper, and we could hear them clearly from… Read More Ancient ruins
Last night we had an excursion to Arachova Village, a picturesque town on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Before dinner, we had a few minutes to explore the town, and we made a beeline for a Byzantine church dedicated to the Virgin Mary where a service was in progress. This certainly was not the first… Read More Greek Orthodox traditions… Read More Greek Orthodox traditions
Today we saw some of the most spectacular scenery of our entire trip—the steep, rocky and dramatic pinnacles of the Meteora region. Yesterday we saw the imposing mountains from down below. Today, though, we drove up to two of the monasteries on the top of the mountains. At one time there were 44 monasteries but… Read More Monasteries in Meteora