Last night was the official debut of the Estonia piano at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, which culminated in a Facebook Live event featuring Maika’i Nash and Mark Wong. They performed music for two pianos in a concert called Taevamuusika, which is Estonian for “music of the heavens.”

You can refresh your memory on the remarkable journey of how this extraordinary piano came to the church by reading my post: The story of the Estonia piano. The piano was a gift from the Janice Chan Parrott family.

The theme of the night was music of the cosmos, including three movements from Gustav Holst’s suite, The Planets and a virtuosic 4-hands Star Wars fantasy arranged by Mark Wong.

Maika’i Nash bills himself as “the world’s only Native Hawaiian pianist and vocal coach, performs regularly while continuing to expand his teaching studio.” He is a graduate of the Schubert Institute in Austria and has studied at the University of Hawaii and at McGill University under the tutelage of Michael McMahon and Kyoko Hashimoto. He debuted with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11 and was a regular soloist with them for a number of years. He has been an award, scholarship and prize winner for many organizations and competitions and is a grant recipient from the Canada Council of the Arts and the Quebec Conseil des Arts et des lettres.

Mark Wong has been the organist and assistant to the director of music and liturgy at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu since 2013. On the church’s website, he says that he came here because worship and music is done with such great care. Previously Mark was the organist of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church for over 20 years.

Scott Fikse, music director of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, hosted the evening, even though he was thousands of miles away vacationing in the Pacific Northwest. He interspersed photos of the galaxy and planets with video of the performance.

Parishioner Cindy Scheinert commented: This is so beautiful! I have all the lights turned off, so I just have sound and images of the musicians or the planets/Milky Way. I feel transported far far away.

Karen Faxvog Anderson wrote: Very lovely! Thank you for that wonderful concert!

https://www.facebook.com/103278686394/videos/726784484712078

The concert begins at 2:25 into the video.