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SATURDAY SEPT. 8, 10 AM: QUEEN LILI’UOKALANI BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL

Please join me and my flutist, Kathy Dorn, next Saturday, September 8 at 10 am in Lili’uokalani Gardens in downtown Hilo. Kathy and I will be opening the He Hali`a Aloha No Lili`uokalani festival, playing original tunes composed by the last monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani. I will also be playing during the Ho’okipa ceremony, where Hawaiian dignitaries will offer gifts in honor of the Queen.

The annual festival is held on the occasion of the Queen’s birthday and is a free family fun event all day long. Featuring children’s activities, entertainment, craft and demonstration booths, food trucks, tea ceremony, and mass hula. (I once danced in this festival about 10 years ago. Now I feel incredibly blessed to perform the Queen’s music.)

 

Cymber Lily Quinn, harp meditations, Hilo Hawaii
Queen Lili’uokalani, composer

Monarch and Talented Composer

Like all royals of her day, she received a solid musical education in the Western tradition from the missionaries who arrived on Hawaiian shores. The Queen showed particular talent and composed more than 300 tunes in her lifetime, many of them while she was under house-arrest in the I’olani Palace.

Kathy and I will be playing old favorites, like “Aloha ‘Oe” and “Sanoe.” And some that we played earlier this year at the Palace Theatre in the Ho’okia’i: Lili’uokalani, like a love song for the forest of Puna and a little ode to a water sprinkler…

 

 

For more information

Cymber Lily Quinn, harp meditations, Hilo HawaiiThis event is co-sponsored with County of Hawaii Parks & Recreation Department Culture & Education Division and Lili`uokalani Trust. For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1857406794554886/

 

 

 

 

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CONCERT AT THE PALACE THEATER, HO’OKIA’I: LILI’UOKALANI. PART 1

Cymber Lily Quinn first moved to the Hilo area in 2004, and first met the Queen’s music through Keola Beamer’s lovely interpretation of “Sanoe.” Cymber quickly fell in love with slack key music and a deeper affair with modern Hawaiian music in general.

At a visit to Queen Emma’s Summer Palace on O’ahu, Cymber found The Queen’s Songbook, the music of Queen Lilu’okalani, and began studying the stories and structures behind her songs. From the beginning, Cymber felt a deep but mysterious familiarity in the Queen’s music. “How could a culture so different produce music that felt so homey?” she wondered.

By tracing the lineage of the Queen’s influences, Cymber realized that the music had come from American missionaries and other church influences from the East Coast. That church music had in turn traveled hundreds of years before from England and Europe, where Cymber’s ancestors had immigrated from in 1638. The folk music of Cymber’s ancient Welsh ancestors had started traveling to America in the guise of church music 400 years ago. The music traveled again to meet Queen Lili’uokalani, who took to it like a fish to water…

 

ACT 1: THE QUEEN’S MUSIC

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Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce New Member Orientation – Update

 

Due to the hurricane activity, this Friday’s event (Aug. 24) for the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce has been postponed until next week: Aug. 31

If you own or work for a Hawaii Island business and are not yet a member of the Chamber, please contact me. I’d love to share why I decided to join and work on the Membership Committee.

What: Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce New Member Orientation
When: August 31, 2018, 11:30
Where: Call for location

I hope to see you there, stay safe.

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Playing Jazz Standards with the Incomparable Elena Welch

Cymber Lily Quinn, harpist, Elena Welch, jazz vocalist, Magic Pan, Hilo, HawaiiYa know, it’s not all angel wings and wispy clouds here in my harp life.

I also love to take the harp into musical adventures where there often aren’t harps. Jazz is just such a place, and I can’t think of a more wonderful singer to play with than the incomparable jazz vocalist, Elena Welch (featured in the red top).

If first met Elena years ago, when we were both living in Hilo. A favorite bass player had passed away, and the whole community turned out for a big jam – or “kanikapila” as it’s know in Hawaiian. I heard Elena bust the roof off with her big, beautiful, saucy standards, and fell in love with her vocal stylings.

Elena, like me, had to leave the island for a while. I moved to California, and she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she continues to sing regularly with her backing bands. We stayed in touch in the modern way – via Facebook.

And this week, Elena’s visiting home in Hilo again, for the 5th Hilo Jazz Festival last weekend. She hosted a little jam at Le Magic Pan (excellent gluten-free crepes, by the way).

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