My Service Playing Exam

On May 22nd, I did my Service Playing Exam through the Royal Canadian College of Organists. It was my first exam with them.
I attended a Hymn Playing Workshop with Thomas Fitches in preparation for the exam and I think it really helped.

My exam was at St. Clement's Anglican Church and I was allowed some practice time before.

Here are a few pictures from inside the church.

The RCCO exam was different from RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) exams.
The RCCO examiner was behind a screen, so I wasn't able to see him or her and the examiner never spoke directly to me. Someone meets you before the exam and takes you to the organ and he was the person who gave me the sight reading and told me which hymn I would be playing.

I also didn't need to provide copies of my music for the examiner. I guess the examiner might see my name on the music if I had to provide copies.


Here are some videos of some of the pieces I prepared for the exam.

Rigaudon
(Processional for a wedding)

Anthems:
God Be In My Head

God In My Eternity

Hymns:
I chose "Lord Jesus Think On Me" for the hymn that I would definitely play and this is the one I worked on at the workshop.

Lord Jesus Think On Me

The hymn that the examiner selected was "Forth In Thy Name O Christ We Go"
I accidentally hit an extra note at the end of this video, but that didn't happen in the exam.

Forth In Thy Name O Christ We Go

Holy, Holy, Holy (Nicaea) was on the list of hymns that we could play. I had no idea that this was my Grandma's favourite. My Mom didn't tell me until after the exam as she didn't want to influence my choice of hymns. She also didn't want me to get emotional considering how much this piece meant to Grandma.

Holy, Holy, Holy (Nicaea)

Most of these videos are 'unlisted' on youtube and are a special treat here for people who read my blog.

I am still waiting for my results. I'm hoping I did well.

Hymn Accompaniment Workshop with Tom Fitches

May has been a very exciting month for me. I have so much to blog about! I'll split them up into a series of blog posts so it's not one huge, rambling piece.


On May 5th, the Royal Canadian College of Organists (Toronto Chapter) had a workshop about how to play hymns. Thomas Fitches led the workshop at St. Clement's Church.

The description of the workshop said:

 I had my first RCCO exam coming up - The Service Playing exam and, of course, I went.


Playing a hymn is different from doing a piece for a recital.

• You have to think about where the congregation will breathe when they are singing. 
• You need to think about the introduction - The congregants need to know when to sing
• Rhythm is important - it needs to be steady or the people singing might get confused
• The tempo needs to be at a speed where the congregation can sing a line in one breath
• You have to think about the meaning of the words and this should be reflected in your choice of registration. 

At the hymn playing workshop we worked on all of these and more!

Here was the first time I played through the hymn, Lord Jesus Think on Me (Southwell)

https://youtu.be/zYpB7tdSiH8

I needed to play just a bit faster, and I needed to extend the introduction so that the last notes I'd play would be in the same key that the congregation would sing.


Here is how it sounded after and with people singing.

https://youtu.be/ieYT8YdTNT4

It is so different going from practicing alone to playing with people singing. I don't usually play for a congregation, so this was really good for me.

I think it is really helpful that the RCCO offers this kind of workshop and it's free!
Tom even brought tim-bits, pastries and coffee to share!

Thank you so much Tom, and thank you to the RCCO for putting on the workshop!

RCCO Masterclass with William Porter

Since it was March Break, I had my entire Saturday free. My orchestra just had our concert and so we have a couple Saturdays off. 

I was able to go to William Porter's Masterclass hosted by the RCCO (the Royal Canadian College of Organists) on March 10 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at King & Simcoe. 

It was my first time watching a Masterclass and it's quite different from a regular class as there is an audience. William Porter is a world-renowned performer and he is well known for his improvisations.

The participants in this Masterclass were, Manuel Piazza, Stefani Bedin, Zoe Lei and Martin Jongsma.

I got to the Masterclass early, so I was able to sit up front.

First we heard Manuel Piazza play the Bach Prelude in B Minor, BWV 544. Manuel is the Organ Scholar at St. James' Cathedral and Manuel played for the choir that I sang with in Chichester & Winchester in the UK over the New Year hoilday.

William Porter taught Manuel to slowly release the keys for certain chords so that it would be a more gentle release.  He also had some feedback about the text. He commented that on the original manuscripts from the earlier years Bach was less strict about notation, but later on, he became more precise. Sometimes publishers or editors may have added things. William Porter noted that you need to understand the piece instead of entirely relying on the notation.

Next we heard Stefani Bedin play Bach's Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, BWV 676.

(I believe Stefani's teacher is Kevin Komisaruk. Kevin played clavichord for my Grandma at her hospital bedside just a few days before she passed away. She was really comforted by his playing.)

William suggested that Stefani use some alternate fingering that would make it less tiring to play. He also had some feedback about the text and the consistency of certain elements like trills at choral entries.


We then heard Zoe Lei play Bach's Prelude in E flat Major.

William Porter asked her to focus on the rhythm of the piece. He also looked at the meaning of the phrase, "Pro organo pleno" and how it has changed over the years regarding registration. In Bach's time, it meant principals, mixtures and pedal reeds and then later on it evolved to include the manual reeds. She only needed to make a very simple change by adding the mixtures (stops with multiple ranks of high pitched pipes.)


The last organist we heard was Martin Jongsma. He was improvising a fugue and William Porter gave him feedback on how to improvise a fugue in the German Baroque style.
This was the most interesting part for me as improvisation is totally new to me. For the fugue, he suggested to keeping to 3rds and 6ths for the counter subject, and he also said that you shouldn't start a new voice from the same note but they shouldn't be too far apart from each other. I tried this when I got home, and it's so cool.

Thanks to the RCCO, William Porter and to all of the organists who played!
It was a great morning out!

Phantoms of the Organ at Church of the Holy Trinity

Halloween wouldn't be the same without an organ concert.

On Friday night, Dad and I went to "Phantoms of the Organ" at Church of the Holy Trinity. It is put on by the Royal Canadian College of Organists. (I joined the RCCO in September of this year.)
They invited some very talented people to play spooky music in this concert.

The program included:

Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J.S. Bach

Sarah Svendsen

Sonata No. 2 - II Ruhig bewegt by Paul Hindemith

Kwon Youn Jung

Prelude C minor by J.S. Bach

Esther-Ruth Teel

Little G Minor Prelude and Fugue by J.S. Bach

Lionel Rupic and William Tessier

Suite Medievale - Intro and Tiento by Jean Langlais

Sebastian Moreno

Funeral March of a Marionette by Charles Gounod

John Tuttle

Canon in B minor by Robert Schumann

Nicholas Wanstall

Fuge uber ein Thema von Germanotta by Giovanni Dettori

Manuel Piazza

Suite Gothique by Leon Boellmann

Introduction - Choral  - Stephen Frketic

Menuet gothique - Stefani Bedin

Priere a Notre-Dame - Matthew Boutda

Toccata - Rebecca Philips

I loved Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette and Schumann's Canon in B Minor. They were both really great pieces and wonderfully played.

Suite Gothique has always been a favourite of mine and the concert did not disappoint. The organists really brought it to life.

In the piece Sonata No. 2 - II Ruhig bewegt by Paul Hindemith, the 'modern' harmonies make it a bit spooky. I never noticed that before now. It's very interesting that Kwon Youn Jung chose that piece. It's quite original for a Halloween concert. Well done!

The Fuge uber ein Thema von Germanotta by Giovanni Dettori brought out some laughs. It's a fugue on the theme "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga. I have never heard Lady Gaga played in a church or on an organ before!

It was a really fun performance!
Thank you to all of the organists and to the RCCO for a great concert!

Pedals, Pipes and Pizza - March Break 2017

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.

https://youtu.be/kVEYQtKhk9k

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.

https://youtu.be/G9WJ3DvC0eI

Thank you to Stephen Boda, Stephen from the RCCO, Thomas Fitches and everyone who made this day possible!

I loved it and had a wonderful time.
I hope to see you all again soon!