I frequently feel homesick for the stars, for that place that seems always to be slightly out of reach. That’s when “Writing Letters Home” can be a soothing, grounding experience.
I felt most close to it one morning when we were vacationing on the west end of Molokai Island, Hawai’i. I had the honor of watching this gorgeous moonset.
Later, I composed and recorded the music for this meditation. I played it on a Paraguayan Harp, recorded at my home with simple equipment.
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.)
FOR MORE INFORMATION
This 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/
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.)
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
This 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/
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…
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