Visits

First off, a very happy Christmas to anybody reading! Make the best of the holiday!

The best part about this time of year, for me, is when friends and family visit. For me, this is especially important because my family is very spread out. I have family in Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, and California!

On the 30th, my Grandparents from Indianapolis are visiting us here in Bloomsburg, spending the night and then off to upstate New York where about half, or maybe a little more, of my father's side of the family lives. It will be so nice to see them! I spent the summer with them and haven't seen them since they brought me back here in the first week of August. I've definitely missed them and I can't wait to see them!

Now, something a little less ordinary. First off, some background. I've made many acquaintances and friends as well over the internet through networking with other organists and classical musicians online. I've made friends with conservatory music professors, professional performers, amateurs, music students, and music enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds from all over the United States, as well as in Canada, England, and Sweden. I've already met several of these acquaintances. Rees is a teenage organist from Arkansas, I met him this past summer in Indianapolis, Jon and Robert are two more organists who I became friends with online and later met in the Indianapolis area. On the opposite end of the age spectrum, Robert Swift is retired organist I became friends with on youtube, then met in Richmond, VA where my grandparents lived at the time. We had him over for dinner.

This upcoming Tuesday, the 28th of December, I'll be meeting two wonderful friends and mentors who I have known online for over a year now. Robert, a retired music professor at Purchase College, and a former student of the legendary French teacher of music, Nadia Boulanger, as well as an accomplished concert organist, accompanist, and chamber performer, who has made several professional recordings and published several candanzas, among other honors, lives in Connecticut. He is driving down that morning, on the way, he'll pick up Darren, a Juliard graduate with a degree in piano performance, as well as a former professor and accomplished organist and choral director, who is in New York. En route, they will stop in Wilkes Barre and meet with my friend Mark Laubach (a VERY accomplished, award-winning concert organist) at Saint Stephen's Episcopal Pro-Cathedral (Home to the largest, and arguably the finest, organ in Northeastern PA). I will meet them there and after playing that organ and spending some time with our friend Mark, we'll end up in Bloomsburg. They're staying for two nights.

How did this trip come about? At first it was just Robert, coming down to try out the organ at my church, since he is playing a concert here in April. It is very important for an organist to become acquainted with an unfamiliar organ before playing a concert. Many concert organists will make a trip in advance to test out the organ they will be performing on. This trip was originally going to be only that, but we decided why not make an event of it?

So Darren is coming along and I am going to meet my two friends for the first time! It's an amazing thing! To think I can have such a friendship with two people I've never met in person! (I should mention, Darren and Robert have known each other personally for many years)

Darren and Robert are both polished, professional musicians of the very highest caliber, they are both incredible performers and teachers and have been wonderful mentors to me as a musician. Already they have taught me much about music just through message exchanges on facebook and youtube.

I should add, not only is it amazing to make friends this way, but to instantly extend artistic and musical ideas and knowledge to others who are interested via the internet, I feel, can only have positive effects on art and music.

So here's to visiting family, if only they could be closer all the time! And here's to meeting good friends for the first time!
Have a happy Christmas!