Musical Saga...

There are two stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Lexington, Kentucky area. A 'stake' is a group of congregations (wards). Every year these two stakes combine their musical abilities for a Christmas Program. Each year the responsibility for this program rotates between the two stakes. The 2011 program was the responsibility of the Lexington North Stake this year. This is the stake in which our ward is located.

Suzi Hjorth is the cultural arts specialist for the Lexington North Stake and it was her lot to organize this year's Christmas Program.

This year's program was titled "Come See the Christ Child". It featured a creche display from 6pm to 7pm. Then the musical concert was from 7pm to 8pm. Refreshments and additional viewing of the creches was from 8pm to 9pm.

One of the beauties of this type of event is the opportunity to perform music that is a bit more difficult. A lot of the people that participate have musical backgrounds of varying levels. It is a good opportunity to use that training.

Another beauty is the music can be outside of worship service music. We did two pieces that fit that catagory. They were "Pat a Pan" and "Run to the Manger".

Suzi started practices with the choir the beginning of November if I remember correctly. They were to be held every Sunday evening at 7pm.

Then the first 'glitch' happened. Suzi fell off a ladder and broke her right arm. She asked Kathy Alexander to help her. Basically Kathy led the choir as they began learning the music. She deferred to Suzi as to how the piece should be sung. And the choir was off and running.

Suzi is full of energy. This is infectious with a choir of talented people wanting to sing. It really kept the mood and feel of the entire experience upbeat. Kathy Alexander is not one whit behind Suzi when it comes to energy and keeping the pace moving and upbeat.

Suzi's hubby was our accompanist. He is also the Bishop of their ward. Even with his hands very full with that calling, he still cheerfully played for the choir every Sunday evening. One of my favorite moments was practicing parts on one of the songs. Bishop Hjorth played the part...then you could tell the melody was familiar as some other piece of music. He played the part again and then let his hands flow to that familiar melody from another piece of music...da dum da dum, da dum da dum...we all noticed what he was doing and after another measure or two we were all laughing. It was the Pink Panther music. Such silliness.

At one point Suzi realized she wanted a piece played on the organ. She left me a voice message and gave the name and composer of the piece. The piece was Candlelight Carol. I rummaged through my music and found a copy and tried it on the piano before returning Suzi's call. Ugh...six, that's right, six flats. I also could tell why it needed to be played on the organ. It was written so the left and right hands played in the same place often. That is easily done with two keyboards. Not so much with just the piano keyboard. I called Suzi back and told her I would try and see if I felt I could learn it.

Now you should refer back to a past blog entry about practicing that song for 3 1/2 hours in one sitting. I was getting the pedals to work with the hands...then fate tipped its hand again.

I was using the organ in our meetinghouse after our choir practice on Sunday's to practice. It was a much more productive practice than playing the piece on my piano at home with the left hand an octave lower that it was written. Plus, I could practice the pedals. Well, after choir practice two weeks ago, I was walking from the piano to the organ to practice, I didn't notice the stepstool in front of the pulpit, I caught my toe on it and couldn't get my balance and I found myself laying on the floor on the stand. I had stretched out my left arm and fallen on it and really messed my left shoulder up. I missed choir practice that night. And, I couldn't practice for a full week after the fall. (There is a previous blog entry about this as well.)

Suzi shared a story of a member in the ward chuckling over her little T-Rex arm.  She could only lift her right arm so that the hand looked like a little T-Rex arm. When Suzi found out I fell she sent me an eMail and asked if I had a T-Rex arm too. I had to admit I did.

Eventually we got through last Sunday's practice. I was able to play at the last practice so it was a go for that piece of music.

Last Sunday night was the Nativity Festival and Concert.

We all arrived at the church at 5pm to warm up before people showed up for the creche display viewing.

One piece we were singing was exceptionally high for the sopranos. Bishop Hjorth realized if he played it on the organ there is facility to change the key to a little lower key. We warmed up with the lower key and the entire choir liked that better.

I played the prelude on the organ. The program began with an opening hymn by the congregation and I also played that on the organ. The organ had a problem back in November with a pedal note playing constantly even when you weren't touching a key or pedal. As long as the pedal stops were on, the one drone sounding note would play. We asked for repairs and they were done quickly. However, when I finished the opening hymn that drone note was there again. Oh My Goodness!!!  I turned off the organ.

Then Bishop Hjorth came and changed the settings on the organ to a lower key for the choir piece "E'en So Lor dJesus Quickly Come".  He found that drone note was still playing. He turned off all the pedal stops and just played the keyboards. The choir sang and it was just fine. We all knew there were no pedals but I don't think the audience knew.

About the middle of the program I hopped back up to the organ for "Joy to the World". This piece is done with piano and organ playing together. I turned on the organ, turned off the pedal stops so the drone sound would go away and prepared to begin. Suzi conducted for Mario Fugal, the pianist, and myself a pace setting beat and then we started to play. Oh No...something was NOT right. My first thought was the problem with the drone sound had taken over the organ. Fortunately Kathy Alexander was clear enough in her thought that she knew immediately the key change was still set to a lower key setting. We quickly corrected that and Suzi gave us our tempo setting measure and we were off with the congregation singing a rousing rendition of "Joy to the World".

The rest of the music went just fine. In the end, I don't think a lot of that was obvious to the audience. We tried to quickly and as quietly as possible handle these little glitches. It was a beautiful program and truly helped set a beautiful holiday spirit.

As nice as it was, it did feel very good to have that piece of Christmas done.

Today I played the piano at the nursing home in place of Papa and me singing. I just carried my hymnbook and some other Christmas music books and played for 1 1/2 hours. It was great fun to play at my pace and what I thought they might know.

The only other program now is the Georgetown Ward Christmas Program on Christmas day.

I do love Christmas music. It has been fun to go back and play some of it. I'm learning my fingers don't move like they used to. A lot of that is not playing regularly. Shame on me!! But it is still fun to do what I can and have it fill me with a little of that good Christmas spirit.