A Tar Heel Evening

Last night, I had the pleasure to meet Tyler, who I "met" through the RPInet Forums, and now are Facebook friends. He was in Raleigh for business.

Despite my raspy voice, we still agreed to meet near Duke University, and I gave him a very brief driving tour of campus, specifically driving by Duke Chapel.

Once we did that, we went on to Chapel Hill and ate dinner at Mama Dip's. I am so glad Tyler liked it - it's one of the places I like to take friends, especially those who haven't been to NC before. It's been a while since I was last there - I think the last time I was there, a professor from Campbell University in Buies Creek was visiting, and that was our lunch time venue.

Once we finished our meal, I took Tyler on a walking tour of UNC, but we also stopped by University United Methodist Church and Chapel of the Cross and spent some time with UUMC's three-manual, 50-rank Möller, and COTC's two organs, a two-manual, 17-rank Dobson, and a three-manual, 61-rank Kleuker. Tyler played all three organs, and I was happy to be able to give him the chance to do so. I can tell he was really enjoying himself. He played some, I played some, and we continued on until around 10.00 pm, when Roy came around to lock up.

It was really nice to hear him play. He was telling me about some of the organs he has access to when he's back home in Vancouver, BC. Unfortunately, because he is constantly travelling, his organ lessons aren't as frequent as he would like, but still - he's got talent, and it was nice to hear him try out a hymn or two, improvise (and he did a bit of that, especially on the Möller, and all the neat toys my organ teacher had installed on that thing) and play some of the pieces he had been working on from memory.

He'll be travelling onwards to Philadelphia before heading back to Vancouver. I'm glad we had the chance to meet, and I am glad to have given him the opportunity to unwind a bit with the walking tour and the organ playing.