August is also hot

 Still reaching 100F or higher every day--but there were a couple of cooler mornings this week, for which I was grateful! Twice I opened windows for a short while and let in some cool fresh air. I really like fresh air! I get really tired of air conditioned air, even though I am so grafeul to have it. I just prefer fresh air.

I am low-key dreading this coming week--I am supposed to get a new computer. This was supposed to happen last week, so I moved a bunch of pictures and files onto my hard drive, and I am so good at that that I lost a lot of files, so I copied my entire recycle bin from this computer onto my hard drive, which means there is a lot of junk on there. 

I am worried that I will even lose access to my blog, because what is the password? Who knows? I don't think I do!! Arrgh!! I can currently just click into many things because my computer is smart like that, while I am password challenged. All the time.

Oh well!! Progress, right? Gotta love it!

This was Miriam's last full week with us before she flies out to join her family in Doha. We have a couple more days with her, and then it will be airport day on Tuesday.

This last full week was the BYU Organ Workshop that is held every year. Miriam attended last year, and also this year. 

This year, her private organ lesson (on Tuesday afternoon) was with her first organ teacher, when she took the Organ First program at BYU taught by Nora Hess, beginning when Miriam was only eight years old. It was fun to see the two of them interact all these years later, which I got to do because the rules are that minors have to have an adult with them. Rachel had a class at the assigned time, so lucky me! 

It was fun to hear the new pieces Miriam is working on! The Bach Gigue Fugue had a very sticky tune and very tricky timing. Nora got Miriam going with the metronome, and it was, from my point of view, super helpful. The other pieces was litanies of some kind, and I liked how Nora described it as this big rock, and when it starts to roll downhill, it doesn't go at the same rate because science! That was a helpful metaphor for me (who was not the one playing the piece!)

Here are Miriam and Nora together at the end of their lesson:

The other organ event this week was the Hymn Sing that they traditionally do at the BYU Organ Workshop. This was held on Thursday evening, and Rachel and I met Miriam there.

This year, Don Cook, who retired from BYU a year ago, was the featured organist. He was so happy to be there, and so emotional. He was the one who worked tirelessly for a long time to get the huge wonderful pipe organ that BYU has today. "The concert hall pipe organ is the Létourneau Opus 100, a custom-built instrument designed in the English Town Hall style. Installed in October 2024 in the BYU Music Building's Concert Hall, it features 4,603 pipes and 81 ranks." (quoting Google's AI overview) BTW, this is a Quebec-built organ--when Isabelle Demers was here she commented on how close she lives to their facility. 

Don planned a program of 10 of his favorite hymns. As per this event's usual, the printed program had two sides: one for the singers, and the other to explain to organists how he chose to accompany each piece. Also people who were registered for the organ workshop would also have (for one week) access to the free organ accompaniments used on each last verse. These arrangements were mostly by Don Cook himself, but there were a couple by Gerald Dick (he was once upon a time the music librarian at BYU, and then the music cataloguer, and also a bag piper as well as an organist AND apparently was also a harp builder) and the last one was by my good friend Vanja Watkins, which was a free accompaniment for the hymn "Press Forward, Saints" with lyrics by my other good friend Marvin Gardner--we three are currently working on a music project together. Also Marv wrote the lyrics for another one of the hymns that Don planned.

Free accompaniments -- people might not know what that means. "An organ free accompaniment (also called an alternate or free harmonization) is a creative re-harmonization of a standard hymn tune. Organists play it to support the congregation or choir, usually on the final verse of a hymn while people sing the melody in unison." - Google AI but they got their info from the BYU Organ website.

Anyways, here is Don talking about one of the hymns. He just spoke for a minute or two about each one, about why he chose it or what it means to him.

This next picture is an attempt to show that they also had a screen set up on stage that showed his feet while he was playing. (That would have been cool to have for the Isabelle Demers concert, but I guess nobody thought of it until later!)

It happens that I took that picture at the very beginning of "Silent Night." Yes, we did sing not one, but two, Christmas hymns in August, on a blistering hot day!! This is because Don was choosing favorites, and so "Hark, the herald angels sing" and "Silent Night" were chosen.

For "Silent Night" the house lights were turned off, and then on the phrase "all is bright" people were supposed to turn their little candles on. (Because people were given the opportunity to take a little tiny candle light when they came to the concert if they wanted to.) Only the first row would turn on theirs, and then the second, then the third, and so forth, until all the rows in the concert hall had their lights shining by the time we got to "radiant beams" in the third verse. (No free accompaniment for this one.)

 People who came in late (there are a bunch at top left of the above photo) missed out on the opportunity to have candles, so not many lights up there. And we also sang the last verse a capella, in the candle light. It was lovely. It was indeed calm and bright, like the song says.

And at the end, I took a picture of Miriam with her friend Abby who has also attended the BYU Organ Workshop for two years. So they have become pretty well acquainted with each other. It happened that Abby and her mom sat behind us. (That is Abby's mom just behind Miriam, talking to a young man.)

And that is all I have to report on this week! I am just walking every morning while it is still decently cool, and digging lots of dandelions, and dreading getting a new computer next week!