As a pianist, I had a busy Easter at the keys. I accompanied for four different songs of varying styles. It was a great service, and we had an excellent turnout. Of course, this is one of a handful of services each year that people will attend even if just to get someone off their back. That being said, the crowd at ORBC today seemed enthusiastic in their worship of the risen Savior. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘solo performance’
Easter Sunday at ORBC
Posted: March 31, 2013 in GeneralTags: piano, music, performance, choral, ORBC, duet, trumpet, easter, solo performance, Faye López, Mark López, god of heaven, heather sorenson, tom fettke, the wilds
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2011 Oak Ridge Baptist Church Christmas Concert
Posted: October 26, 2012 in Performance, VideoTags: bells, choral, christmas, duet, ensemble, flute, guitar, james koerts, Keith Getty, ORBC, percussion, piano, saxophone, solo performance, trumpet, video, viola, violin
[NOTE: This was originally published in December 2011]
This year I helped our music pastor organize a concert for our adult Christmas program. We usually do the traditional cantata or musical, but this year was a bit different. We chose musicians from within the church and asked them to collaborate with other musicians to create our own program. We didn’t set limits on song length, and we encouraged traditional and sacred pieces to be chosen. We ended up with a great mix of instruments and arrangements. There were selections from the Nutcracker, Handel’s Messiah, and 20th century American traditional music. (more…)
I played two different songs in the morning service today at church and became more aware of a personal “tic” than I have been before. I found that I was very tense physically during and after playing. Many people who hear me play that aren’t musicians seem to believe that I’m very relaxed and that I make it look easy. Many times that is true, but more often than you might realize, it’s not. (more…)
Thanks to anyone out there that was praying for the wedding that I played for today. It actually went really well. I certainly didn’t play perfectly, but it was relatively error free. Plus the only ones that probably noticed mistakes were the other pianists in the house. The timing of the songs worked really well, and the rest of the ceremony went smoothly as far as I could tell. (more…)
The wedding is tomorrow, and I am NOT ready
Posted: May 27, 2011 in General, PerformanceTags: solo performance, wedding
Tonight I went to the rehearsal for the wedding that I’m playing for tomorrow afternoon. I felt that I was pretty well prepared for the seven songs that I will be playing. Boy, was I wrong! The coordinator informed me that I needed to cover about 10 minutes of prelude. Wrong! I had to cut and paste measures to make that work. Then the processional had to be cut almost in half. Finally, the trumpeter playing “Trumpet Voluntary” needed to get a lower key than the version I had selected. So then we had to scour the internet for that and rehearse together.
I’ve never considered myself to be a “squeaky clean” pianist that plays extremely accurately. Because of this, I’ve always been much less confident when playing solo rather than as an accompanist. Needless to say, I will be way outside of my comfort zone tomorrow…which is good for me. I just hope it’s good for the bride and groom too. Prayer for me around one tomorrow would be much appreciated.
