It must be Spring Concert Season!
[DISCLAIMER] I am only personally involved in three of these concerts and this is by no means a comprehensive list of concerts in Hawaii! For example, it does not include the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra concerts even though I have season tickets and will most probably be in the audience, barring any unforeseen disasters. It only includes primarily choral concerts about which people have sent me information, or in some cases, I have been asked to play but have a scheduling conflict.
Windward Choral Society, Sunday, May 6, St. John Vianney Church, 920 Keolu Drive, Kailua, HI, 4:00 pm. The featured work is John Alexander’s Requiem conducted by Susan McCreary Duprey. Soloists include Malia Ka’ai Barrett and Karol Nowicki. I will be playing the organ in this concert as part of an ensemble including harp, cello and English horn. See my post about this work.
With a Little Bit of Help from my Friends, Jeremy Wong’s Aloha Concert, Friday, May 11, Lutheran Church of Honolulu, 7:30 pm. Jeremy, who was at one time the church’s interim Choral Director, and with whom I have collaborated on a number of projects, writes this: The concert is a celebration of gratitude and collaboration between myself, pianist Maika’i Nash, and SO MANY of my talented friends featuring vocal chamber music with cello, operatic and musical theater duets and trios, a new art song by a Mililani native that is absolutely GORGEOUS, and Robert Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis (Op. 39). Admission to the concert is free, though there will be a freewill offering taken.
This concert also marks my last engagement in Honolulu, as I prepare to continue my studies abroad. I have submitted an application to pursue an MA in Lied (Art Song) at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany for this coming October. I have a teacher in Stuttgart, Teru Yoshihara, who is saving a spot for me to enroll in the program and I am trying to take him up on his offer. The opportunity to study with Professor Yoshihara serves multiple purposes; I am able to immerse myself in the country that Lied originated, and also to study with someone who is a scholar in Japanese art song, a genre in which I also have keen interest. I hope to develop this into further research, by tracing the roots and traditions of German Lieder and compositional techniques and influences to Japan, to where many European musicians relocated after the country opened its borders.
Iolani School Chorus and Hokuloa Spring Concert, Friday, May 18, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, 7:30 pm, John Alexander, director. I will be playing movements from Mozart’s Missa Brevis and Gilbert Martin’s “When I survey the wondrous cross.”
The eclectic program ranges from Mozart to classical American choral repertoire; and from jazz to Disney, pop and Hawaiian, accompanied variously by organ, piano, and ipuheke — a little something for everyone
Triumph Over the Odds 2, presented by Early Music Hawaii, May 19, Lutheran Church of Honolulu, 7:30 pm. Naomi Castro will be conducting the all-women’s Early Music Hawaii ensemble in inspirational music by women composers who broke through many barriers to achieve recognition.
The program includes rich sacred chant, polyphony and solos from medieval Byzantium and Germany to the 17th century Italiay nuns acclaimed by European audiences in their own time.
The concert will feature a selection from Francesca Caccini’s “Ruggiero” of 1625, the first ever opera by a woman, and a brilliant aria by the Venetian Barbara Strozzi—two female pioneers in a world dominated by men.
I have designed the poster and will layout the program for this concert. Ordinarily I would have played continuo organ for this concert but had a conflict with the dress rehearsal. So my organ student, Sachi Hirakouji will be doing the continuo honors.
Mozart Requiem, Kona Choral Society, May 19, Mauna Lani Bay Hotel, 4:00 pm with guest conductor Joseph Flummerfelt. I am really sorry to miss this one since Dr. Flummerfelt had a long tenure at my alma mater, Westminster Choir College, and I was looking forward to seeing him again as Susie initially asked me to play the organ. However, I had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t be two places at once! Jieun Kim Newland will be playing continuo organ.
Musical America’s 2004 Conductor of the Year, Joseph Flummerfelt’s musical artistry has been acclaimed in many of the world’s concert halls for nearly 40 years. He is founder and musical director of the New York Choral Artists, is an artistic director of Spoleto Festival USA, and for 33 years was conductor of the world-renown Westminster Choir. A gifted orchestral conductor, Maestro Flummerfelt has conducted over 50 performances with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy and in the U.S. He has also appeared as guest conductor with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, and the San Antonio and Phoenix Symphonies. In 1988 he made his New York Philharmonic debut with a performance of Haydn’s Creation, and in 2001 he conducted the world premiere of Stephen Paulus’ Voices of Light with the Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir.
Extraordinary Ordinary: settings of the Mass throughout the Ages, May 26, Scott Fikse conducts the Lutheran Church of Honolulu Choir, the Men’s Schola, and guest soloist, Mary Sims, 4:00 pm. Featured work is the Mass for Five Voices by William Byrd.
Each movement of this intimate work is paired with a setting from a 20th or 21st setting of the same movement, creating a rich musical dialogue across the centuries. Byrd’s mass will be performed a cappella, while the modern selections are accompanied, some richly scored for two organs or piano, 4-hands, played by Mark Wong and Jieun Kim Newland.
Kyrie: Mass in G Minor: Ralph Vaughan Williams (1871-1958)
Gloria: Missa ad Praesepe: George Malcolm (1917-1997)
Credo: Mass in E flat: Edward C. Bairstow (1874-1946)
Sanctus: Messe Solennelle: Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Benedictus: Oratorio de Noël: Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Agnus Dei: Mass for Women: David Rossow (b. 1975)