Josh is a young Jamaican-Canadian and this blog is about his music & travel adventures and anything that takes his interest. He sings bass, and studies organ, piano, violin & viola.
(This blog was last updated in April 2019, and will no longer updated in the future.)
Last Tuesday, I did the "Music at Midday" recital at St. James' Cathedral. I was asked to fill in just a week before, and I was really excited to help out.
I repeated the program for my last recital (in February) as I am still working on new pieces. My new pieces are really close to being ready, but I want to work on them some more with my teacher first.
My past performances have been arranged weeks or months in advance, so this was a new experience for me.
On Tuesday, I had a recital at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto.
I only just stopped having organ lessons here last month. I will miss going there each week but, I hope that I will be able to do more recitals in the future.
Stephen Boda, my new organ teacher, came to help me out for this recital. He is the Organist at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. He is excellent!
Thank you to Stephen Boda for coming out to help; thank you to Philip Eliot for recording my recital;
And a HUGE thank you to Robert Busiakiewicz for your continuing support!
And of course, thank you to everyone who came out to listen!
On January 24th, I had my last organ lesson at the Cathedral Church of St. James' with Ian Sadler. He is no longer the organist there, and I can't travel to Stratford.
I had my first lesson with him at St. James on October 30, 2016. It seems like it was too short a time. He's been compared to the Mary Poppins of the organ world, as he shows up just when he's needed.
I am certain that it is not the last time I'll be playing organ with him. ;-)
Here are some pictures:
At our last class:
When I got my RCCO Service Playing Certificate last year:
Here we are with Robert at one of my recitals:
And this was the day Robert first introduced me to Ian.
Thank you so much, Ian, for being a fantastic teacher!
And Thank you to Robert, for introducing me to Ian and for allowing me to have my lessons and my first recitals at St. James' Cathedral!
Thank you both for sharing your love of music with me!
I am so sorry for neglecting my blog for so long!
I have been super busy!
I became the Junior Organ Scholar at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. I have especially been involved with the Tone Chimes. I still sing with the choir, and I also played the piano for a couple pieces.
I have also been involved with Orchestra and I started substitute teaching piano at a Music School.
I did a few RCM exams too.... Organ Grade 8, History Grade 10, and Viola Grade 7.
On October 30, 2018, I did an Organ Recital at The Cathedral Church of St. James.
(My Dad had to be the videographer as my Mom started back classes at University of Toronto and couldn't make it.)
Last Tuesday, I did a recital at The Cathedral Church of St. James for "Music at Midday".
Philip Elliot recorded it for me and I uploaded the full recital to SoundCloud:
It was a lot more relaxed than my first two recitals and I felt better prepared, mainly because I had done it before.
Thomas Fitches came to hear me play!
The first time I met him was just a couple days before I started doing organ lessons. I heard him play at "Music at Midday" and so it is really a big deal to me that he came to hear my recital. Thank you so much for coming!
The biggest surprise was that Chrissy Quigley came to my recital! She helps to organize the Leahy Music Camp and she mentioned that she might come but it was wonderful seeing her!
I made sure to upload both Choral Song and Folk Tune since I know you loved them! Thank you for coming all the way to Toronto to hear me play!
One of the highlights of the recital is showing people the Pipe Organ afterwards... I'm hoping that some of the kids will be interested in learning organ in the future!
A huge "Thank you" to my teacher, Ian Sadler and to Robert Busiakiewicz, the Director of Music at The Cathedral Church of St. James for allowing me to perform and do lessons there. And of course, thank you to Philip Elliot for the audio-recording and to my Mom for the videos!
Last week, I went to the Leahy Music Camp.
It was at the beautiful Lakefield College School just outside Peterborough.
This year, I focussed on piano so each morning, I would go to workshops for piano where I learnt how to vary bass lines and chords when accompanying fiddle.
Each afternoon they had electives where you could choose to learn fiddle, guitar, piano, accordion, bagpipes, banjo, step dancing, composition, improvisation, arranging, computer lab or even recording!
It's really difficult to choose what to do in the electives.
I chose:
Beginner Step Dancing with Jacqueline Enright
Beginner Accordion with Timi Turmel
Improvising on Fiddle with Shane Cook
Intro to Bagpipes with Liam McGlashon
Composing with Erin Leahy
And Mac Lab with Gary Atkins.
(Sorry, I don't have a pic from this elective.)
Each evening they had lots of fun stuff planned for us.... You can choose to do as many or as little of the activities as you like.
Monday Evening, the Instructors put on a performance.
I put together a little montage of clips from their performance.
They were awesome!
So much talent in one room and to think they are the ones who would be teaching us for the week!
On Tuesday, we had a Dance.
It was so much fun and my legs were sore the following day. :-)
On Wednesday afternoon, we had a special Slow Fast Jam. In between some of the songs that we were all playing together, we got to see some of the campers perform.
I didn't do the evening activity on the Wednesday though.... We decided to stay in and rest for the busy Thursday ahead.
On the Thursday, we recorded the Camp Chorus.
For the Camp Chorus, I played in the piano section this year. (Last year, I did the fiddle.)
Each section learns their own part separately, and the first time we hear the full thing is when we get together to record it.
It is really exciting!
After the camp edits it and send it out this year, I will make a post about it here on my blog.
On the Thursday afternoon, we had our group challenge performance.
The group challenge is my favourite part of camp.
For the Group Challenge, we get together with other campers who we don't normally see or work with throughout the year and work together on something to perform for everyone.
This year, I worked with Olivia Werden and Gail Poulsen. Olivia wrote a beautiful song called Leia's Lullaby and we arranged and performed it for the group challenge.
We also performed it in the evening at the Grand Jam.
The Grand Jam is the final performance at the camp... It is a lot of fun but it also means that the camp is over. We all get to share the stage with the Instructors and play the tunes that we've learnt throughout the week.
Thank you so much to the Leahys for having such a wonderful camp. It is so nice to be around a family which really seems to like each other and take care of each other.
And of course, a special thanks to Frank Callaghan for opening doors once again for us!
And thanks to Mom for being my chaperone and taking such good videos throughout the camp!
~~
Update:
This blog post has been edited to include a link to a video of the performance of "Leia's Lullaby".
On Sunday, I sang with the Northdale Concert Band, the Grace Church-on-the-Hill Choir, the Christ Church Deer Park Choir, and the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church Choir, at their Last Night of the Proms.
