ASU in DC

This rather busy summer 2016 was nicely capped by a studio trip to Washington, DC. Seven of us climbed onto Amtrak on August 4 and made our way from Salisbury, N.C., to Union Station, D.C., where awaited us a week of beautiful organs and lots of delicious food in all corners of the city.

We visited the rather stunning Möller at Capitol Hill United Methodist (Jon Kalbfleisch), the rapturous Schoenstein at St. Paul's K Street (John Bohl), the ever-changing Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner at the National Cathedral (Benjamin Straley), the treasured Austin at First Baptist (Lon Schreiber), the mighty Möller at National City Christian (Michael McMahon), the sumptuous Lively-Fulcher at the Franciscan Monastery, the myriad treasures at the National Shrine (Benjamin LaPrairie and Nathan Davy), and the exquisite Aeolian-Skinner at National Presbyterian (access courtesy David Lang). See lots of photos HERE.

To a person, our church hosts were gracious, welcoming, and most hospitable to allow us to play and play and play as long as we liked. We marveled all week at how UN-gracious organists in many cities can be, but Washington was by far the friendliest town of organists we had ever encountered. Thank you to all of them.

We also enjoyed the hospitality of one student's sister, who was serving an internship in a Senator's office for the year. She took us through the Capitol, where we learned a wonderful amount about that splendid building.

And the FOOD. Where do we begin? Italian, Mexican, Hard Rock, Asian, Tapas, we had it all. Then there was Amtrak food.