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(This blog was last updated in April 2019, and will no longer updated in the future.)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!
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!
I convinced my Dad to go with me to see Christian Lane perform on Friday. (I guess you can say it's more like I bribed my Dad with paying for the tickets and coffee.)
Christian Lane performed works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) on the magnificent tracker organ at Christ Church Deer Park including:
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564
Partita diverse sopra "Sei gegrüßet Jesu gütig," BWV 768
Choral
Partita I
Partita VIII
Partita IX
Partita X
Partita XI
Prelude, Trio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545/529ii
Christian Lane is very skillful and you only have to listen to his playing to understand why he is an award winning organist. Choosing the best registrations for a piece is a part of the challenge in playing the organ. I particularly loved his playing of Partita especially the registrations that he chose which showcased the potential of the organ. Partita has movements with different moods which have you feeling reverence, excitement, eagerness, and satisfaction. It is really indescribable and you have to hear it for yourself.
The final piece, Prelude and Fugue in A Minor was really dramatic and kept me on the edge of my seat. It was such an amazing piece!
It was totally worth it taking my Dad to see this concert!
I hope I'll be able to hear Christian Lane in concert again soon!
Today, I did my first organ recital.
It was at St. James' Cathedral.
The programme included:
Prelude and Fugue in C Major by J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750)
Largo e spiccato by A. Vivali (1678 - 1741) arr. J. S. Bach
Prelude and Fugue in G Minor by J. S. Bach
Voluntary in A Minor by William Boyce (1711 - 1779)
Berceuse by Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937)
Trumpet Air by Bert van der Hoek (b. 1932)
Siciliano by Max Reger (1873 - 1916)
Gaelic Fantasy for Organ by Hans-Andre Stamm (b. 1958)
The prelude in C Major went smoothly, but I stumbled a little in the fugue. I had a 'fat finger' in a couple pieces but the good news is I think that any future recitals will be easier than this one. I learnt how to recover from my mistakes while performing in public.
Here is a video of Largo e spiccato from my recital:
A huge "Thank you" to Ian Sadler, my teacher and Robert Busiakiewicz, the Director of Music at St. James' Cathedral for allowing me to do lessons at the Cathedral, plus practice time and for letting me perform.
It is hard to believe, Robert introduced me to Ian, last year on October 18th and I had my first organ lesson on October 30th.
Here is a picture from the day I met Ian.
A special thank you to everyone who came out to hear me play, including Julia, Elaine, Kelly, Ken, Christine, Lisa, Mervin, Lucy, Barbara, Sage, and all the homeschoolers.
And thank you to Mom and Dad, I couldn't have done this without you!
Yesterday, Mom and I went to "Music at Midday" at the Cathedral Church of St. James.
Their new Organ Scholar, Manuel Piazza, played for us. He is going to take up the position in September.
He played:
Prelude in B Minor BWV 544 by J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750)
Prelude in G Major, Op. 105 by Charles V. Stanford (1852 - 1924)
Fugue in C Major, from Sonata No. 2, Op. 65 by Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1947)
Organ Symphony No. 6, Op. 42, No. 2 by Charles-Marie Widor I. Allegro II. Adagio V. Final
He was amazing and his program was very entertaining!
I especially loved the Organ Symphony selections by Charles-Marie Widor.
His playing was very precise but also artistic.
Prelude in G Major by Charles V. Stanford was soft, balanced and very enjoyable.
The pieces that Manuel chose were very good at showing off the organ.
I loved it!
I had a wonderful afternoon today!
I went to the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church for "Pipes, Pedals and Pizza" put on by RCCO Toronto.
It was a special program during March Break where they introduce the organ to lots of kids.
It was -17C with windchill but I still managed to drag my Mom along with me.
Stephen Boda played Paul Halley's Outer Hebrides and an excerpt from Widor's Toccata.
He is just excellent.
He is the organist at the TEMC.
He also did a little talk where he explained all about stops, manuals and pedals.
It was a pretty large group so we split up into 3 smaller groups and we got to learn more about the different types of pipes from Thomas Fitches.
He talked about reeds, flues and string pipes and he also explained what the different parts of the pipes are called.
The spot where he is touching in this picture is called a "beard".
We all got to try out the spectacular 5 manual Casavant organ which has over 6000 pipes!
Here is a short video of me playing on the organ.
We also got to see where the pipes are installed in the church.
It was my first time getting to see the pipes like that!
I spliced together 2 short videos so you can have an idea of what it was like. The first part was taped by my Mom and the 2nd part I shot. This was in one of the rooms.
On Tuesday, Mom and I went to see Thomas Fitches play at the "Music at Midday" Concert at St. James' Cathedral. It was wonderful!
We started going to as many organ concerts as possible, because I convinced Mom that it is a part of my education. I want to become an organist and a part of that is listening to many good organists in concert. It was kind of easy to convince Mom to go, because she doesn't like listening to recordings. (It is the same way that Dad can't convince her to watch Baseball on TV, but she will go to games.)
At Thomas Fitches' concert he played:
Preambulo from MusicforOrgan by Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Voluntary II in A minor, Opus 6 by John Stanley
SuiteonMagnificatoftheSecondTone by Jean-Adam Guilain
Prelude
Tuerce en Taille
Duo
Basse de Trompette
Trio de Flutes
Dialogue
Petit Plein-jeu
Fantasie from Fantasie Sonata #17 in B major by Josef Rhineberger
Even though I don't normally like discord, The Preambulo was kind of cool! I think it would be perfect for Halloween.
My favourite part was the SuiteonMagnificat. I really loved the Dialogue and the PetitPlein-jeu.
I am beginning to notice that I like the French style of organ playing.
Here is a picture of me with Thomas Fitches. :-)
He was so kind, and he explained to me how it is pipes in the pipe organ are voiced. He helped with voicing some of the pipes at St. James Cathedral in 1966 - 1967 for Alan T. Jackson of Casavant Freres.
He pointed out the lips on the pipes which I never really noticed before. They hammer the lips to get them in tune. I think it is fascinating that they can go out of tune! And weather can affect them because metal can expand and contract when exposed to extreme temperatures.
Today, Mom and I went to St. James' Cathedral for their weekly "Music at Midday" concert. The Organist was Ian Sandler. He has been the the Organist at St. James' Cathedral since the beginning of this year. His playing is indescribable. It's amazing beyond words!
I won't tell you exactly what he played because he plans to do a similar program in a few months and I don't want to spoil the surprise.
I particularly loved the piece from Symphony No. 2 in E minor by Louis Vierne. And I also loved the Hornpipe Humoresque by Noel Rawsthorne. It was a humorous piece that was actually funny! I was able to pick out quite a few familiar themes from different composers.
After the concert, I got to meet Ian Sandler, and both he and Robert showed me the organ. It is such a beautiful instrument!
Ian and Robert, thank you so much for a wonderful concert and for showing me the organ!
