The weather has been warming, flowers have started to peak about, people are outside more, and Spring is here!
As Spring begins, so I begin planning many things for Spring (and Summer).
First on the list is an organ recital at Saint Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, in late March. I will be playing pieces ranging from the German Baroque, to English Romantic, to French Modern on the Berghaus pipe organ, the largest pipe organ in all of Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania. After the concert is over, I plan to go to lunch with several of my music teachers, as well as some of my choir members, my boss, and my mother. It should be a very fun event.
April, of course, begins with Holy Week and Easter, for which I am planning some rigorous choir music by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as music for two trumpets and organ. After the heat of Easter is over, we will begin preparing for choral evensong for Mothers' Day in May. For this evensong, the choir will be singing a four-part Ave Maria by Tomas de Victoria, Brahms' 'Geistliches Lied', and we may even be singing a Nunc Dimittis composed by myself. Mark Laubach, winner of the 1986 AGO national young artists competition, will be the organist for this evensong. The evensong will be a service of light, which I find especially beautiful, meditative, calming, and concentrating, being so rewarding in the way it aids congregants to connect with the Spirit on new and diverse levels.
After evensong, the annual Pops concert quickly approaches! Still don't know what I will sing for it, but I am not terribly worried about it because I am just beside myself with excitement to see and hear what everybody else does - by far my favorite concert of the year. I am always touched by the nearly unbelievable talent and joy which is exhibited from my beautiful classmates at this concert.
During the Summer, I will be working on lots of solos with people at Saint Paul's, we will be having a choir concert in June (to say farewell to our retiring rector), and will perform an organ and voice recital in the end of July.
Very busy times, to say the least! Hopefully what I do will make somebody else satisfied, bring some beauty through music to another person, even for just that moment. That's my life.
