The Keiki and the Mountain

Wow, what a day! We started it off at Chiefess Kapiolani Elementary School performing for grades K-3 in the cafeteria. It was a big crowd, but they were very attentive and had excellent questions for us. We started off with a little Ligeti and Zemlinsky followed by individual demonstrations of our instruments. The kids always love the bassoon and Marsha really gave them a good idea of its character. We then played "Nani Ha'upu," one of the beautiful new tunes written by Keola Beamer for us to perform with him. Marsha has also prepared a version that we can use when Keola is not available. We also played Marsha's arrangement of the "Hilo March," which they all recognized.

The second school we visited, Keaukaha School, provided us with an even larger audience, this time in a brand new gymnasium. We played at center court on the home team side. Part of this audience was from a Hawaiian Immersion program. Before we played Keola Beamer's "Nani Ha'upu," we asked if anyone knew where Ha'upu is located. One young man knew that it is a mountain on the island of Kauai and that it is a very sacred place. I think they really enjoyed the song while imagining the mountain a few hundred miles away.

A tune they all knew and sang with us was "Hilo March." That received a very enthusiastic response. It really is gratifying to perform for so many students and to see them react to the music and to the musicians. They followed us to the car asking us questions about music and about ourselves, but we had to go so we could prepare for a Big Island adventure- something you can only do here.

Dr. Tom Geballe, President of the Hawaii Concert Society, our presenter and host in Hilo, is an astronomer who works at the Gemini Observatory at the top of Mauna Kea. 13,000 feet!! He kindly agreed to guide us up the windy road to the top and show us around. So we arranged for a 7-passenger SUV and tried to forget about the amount of gas it uses and headed up. I mean up! About 90 minutes later we arrived at the windy and cold top of Mauna Kea surrounded by many telescope facilities from around the world. The Gemini project is a joint project of 7 different nations. Anyway, we got there just before sunset and it was spectacular.






After sunset we were given a tour of the Gemini facility where there were many engineers and scientists working very hard. Something about pointing a laser into the sky in order to focus better, but who knows? The air is very thin up there, so we were not entirely understanding everything. Now that we are back at sea level we feel much better, or at least have different excuses. It is kind of late and we have more keiki to entertain tomorrow.