Culturally themed concert: from New Zealand to Hawaii

Music can transport you to another world, another place, another time, another feeling. Such was my motivation yesterday in South Boston and today in Brockton, Massachusetts when I gave a culturally themed concert to take my audience first to New Zealand, then across the Pacific Ocean, to Hawaii.

View from South Boston

“Has anyone been to New Zealand?” I begin. No one has.

“Oh good! I haven’t either. What language do they speak in New Zealand? What do you call someone from New Zealand? It’s also the name of their national bird.” I want to add that one of my surfer friends named his dog after the fruit of the same name.

“New Zealand is on the other side of the equator. What season do they have now?” The audience guess correctly.

“Has anyone seen the movie ‘Lord of the Rings’? It was filmed in New Zealand. Now close your eyes and imagine the breathtaking majestic scenery — vast green pastures, rivers, waterfalls, mountains. Mother nature.” I play a medley of well-known melodies from the movie on the piano. This is programmatic music — something that makes you see and feel your surroundings.

I then talk about another movie that was filmed there. Whenever I find a lonely piano in a public place, I often play my favourite piece from The Piano  —  “The Heart Asks Pleasure First.” I explain that sometimes your brain can’t tell what your heart wants — at least that’s how I interpret the meaning of the title. In the movie, mute pianist and her daughter arrive from Scotland with her grand piano. Her new husband refuses to take her instrument and leaves it on the beach. She plays this piece on her piano (as in the video below) while her daughter dances on the beach. The man who listens eventually gives a proposition to move her piano, eventually becoming her lover.

https://youtu.be/rfpHj1lC5Yk

“You can’t deny a musician of her instrument. Later, out of jealousy and anger, her husband cuts off top of her index finger.” Several ladies in the audience wince. “Does she stay with him?”

“No, she leaves him and marries her lover.”

I describe the scenery of New Zealand and then talk about the Maori people. I could at this point play music from the movie “The Whale Rider” but I have 45 minutes left. I take out my soprano ukulele and ask everyone to pronounce the words as I say and repeat after me: “e-po e tai ta-ma e.” We sing the traditional Maori song “Epo e Tai” several times.

Seeing that everyone is curious about my instrument, I tell them about my XS Soprano ukulele. “You hold it like a baby close to your heart,” I say.

Born and raised in Hawaii, the six-time Grammy winner Daniel Ho  not only designed this tiny instrument but also wrote lovely music of Hawaii for the piano. I play his “Ho’ae’ae” before the magnificent “Ocean Dance.” I invite the audience to feel the power and momentum of the ocean waves as I take them across the Pacific to Hawaii.

“Has anyone heard of Don Ho?” I ask. “He is not related to Daniel Ho but if you were to go to Honolulu in the seventies, he’d greet you with the song ‘Tiny Bubbles.'” I then invite everyone to sing along with me. The ukulele, though small, provides a very audible accompaniment. “Tiny Bubbles” is an easy song to learn for its moderate tempo and few words that repeat.

I lead them through a few other songs that are easy to learn, such as “White Sandy Beach” and “Blue Hawaii.”

“What do you think blue means? What does it refer to?”

The receptionist shouts from the other room, “Blue skies. Blue ocean.”

I tell them about my six years in Maui where the colors of the sky and ocean are vivid and blue. “There’s Hawaiian music everywhere — in supermarkets, shopping malls, at every airport on every island. It’s 24/7. There are only two kinds of Hawaiian music. Happy and laid back. Happy and makes you want to dance. In all my time in Hawaii, I’ve never heard a sad Hawaiian song.”

Actually “Aloha ‘Oe” is probably the saddest Hawaiian song I know. I play Daniel Ho’s arrangement of “The Queen’s Prayer” before talking about the last queen of Hawaii and lead the audience to sing “Aloha ‘Oe.”

I ask if they know what aloha means. Almost unanimously they call out “hello.” I tell them that the Hawaiian alphabet has only 16 letters. Many words have more than one meaning. “Aloha also means goodbye.”

How can aloha mean both hello and goodbye? Do the Hawaiians believe in cyclicality? Hello and goodbye are the same — or does it really mean love? Can you really say goodbye to someone after you’ve said hello?

After the thematic concert, the event producer motions me to follow him outside. He tells me about his plan to have ukulele players entertain on the terrace in August. He wants to create a Hawaiian atmosphere in the summer. I reply, “By then, I’m sure I’ll have enough people to play. Musicians can’t eat before they play so they’re always hungry after performing.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “There will be plenty of food.”

So my goodbye turns into a hello — in August, at least. And maybe my moving out of Maui isn’t really a goodbye after all. I have yet to visit the famous field of sunflowers that every tourist and resident goes for photographs.

Wishful thinking – Anne with Tiny Tenor ukulele in Fields of Golden Sunflowers