Secrets of grindea mini santa3/16/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() I made it clear that I did not play the organ but that I was willing to learn, and the church was willing to accept me on that basis. After a short time, the organist decided that it was time to retire, and the organist job became available permanently, and it was offered to me. The piano playing was easily accomplished with my existing skills. I was asked last September to serve as a short-term substitute pianist for a church whose organist had fallen and injured herself. I am a singer first and a pianist second. This question was sent by Robin, and she writes: In this conversation, we talk about her love for early music, playing harpsichord and Sigismundus Lauxmin International Harpsichord Contest which she organised the 2nd time this year. Alina studied piano and choral conducting at the music academy in her hometown of Bucharest. After moving to Germany, she studied harpsichord with Siegbert Rampe and Wolfgang Kostujak at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen, with Bob van Asperen at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and with Carsten Lohff and Detlef Bratschke at the University of the Arts Bremen. She is an active soloist and ensemble player, and also in charge of various orchestral, opera, and sacred music projects of the German Early and Late Baroque as an artistic director. As a soloist, she has performed across most of Europe, as well as in Japan, South America and USA. She teaches at the University of the Arts in Bremen. Her solo recordings of harpsichord works by JP Sweelinck, JJ Froberger, and English virginalists have earned excellent reviews in the music press and among their peers. Together with viol player Darius Stabinskas, Alina is the co-founder of the ensemble MORGAINE, which focuses on the music of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Today's guest is harpsichordist Alina Rotaru. Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #693! Every hour you put into organization is going to have tremendous benefits and increase the availability and respect for what you’ve done. One chapter a day seems to be good to remind me of what I used to know. I also got a copy of the New Oxford Organ Method which I find delightful. I get pretty tired by mid afternoon, so I save the evening for watching YouTube videos from your site. I spend about 30 minutes split between Hanon and the Davis textbook pedal exercises to get my dexterity back, and then I look through this repertoire list and pick some things that I’m interested in moving up on the current status list. It’s been very helpful to keep my focus to resurrect all of the things I’ve learned already well while still branching into some new material. I put all this information into a spreadsheet to help me understand my priorities and the current state of each of the pieces I was working on. I even found pieces that clearly I had played because my handwriting is all over the paper, yet I could not remember anything about the piece. I took several days to go through all the music in the boxes to try to remember what I had learned already. ![]() One thing that has helped me is that I put together the attached spreadsheet. My technique has really slipped a good bit, most of my repertoire is rusty, and if I’m not careful I can get pretty discouraged. Now that I’m retired I’m trying to make the magic happen again, and it’s been challenging to figure out how to put the pieces back together. As I mentioned in my prior email I have a masters degree in organ performance from many years ago, and then let it lapse for several decades. You asked me to get back to you about what I’m practicing, and I had to wait a few days to figure out how to explain this. This question was sent by Ed, he is one of our Total Organist students and he writes: ![]()
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