Odds 'n' ends

Widor Volume I has arrived! Look for it in the usual outlets in the coming months.

I launched a professional Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/JobyBellOrganist/

My personal FB is still there, but the above "Organist Version" has all the professional engagements plus the wit of this website, without rantings about traffic, stingy tippers, terrible wardrobes, and an increasing societal inability to make change when the computers are down.

I'm teaching my first-ever Honors course in music for non-majors. We have done everything from testing the acoustics of churches and restrooms to listening to the Tchaikovsky Fourth to talking about the state of musical literacy in our country to finding all the base-3 numerology in the Duruflé Sanctus. We have the B-A-C-H motive and many other fun things left to do.

I'm playing all manner of recitals this season. Apparently this is the season of the half recital, with bookings at Third Baptist in St. Louis, National City Christian in D.C., and St. Louis, King of France in Minneapolis.

I'm also having the most fun I have ever had in teaching -- having taken two sections of first-semester Theory. Thirty-six papers to grade each class meeting day is a lot. But those kids are doing so well, and they make my long days shorter.

Meanwhile, the recitals keep coming, and my 51-year old body does not tire. I am fortunate, and so I hope I will be able to make my audiences fortunate to have taken the trouble to come and listen.