×

Music is everywhere Hawaiian, Cuban, Beethoven and more can be heard this week around the town

The Mohala Mai celebration with Kumu Hula Napua Greig (inset) and Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka (above) is presented at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater in Kahului. Music guests include Keauhou and Na Hoa. A silent auction begins at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $36 (plus applicable fees). For tickets or more information, visit the box office, call 242-7469 or go online to www.mauiarts.org. • Photo courtesy the MACC

Acclaimed Kumu Hula Napua Greig and Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka return to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Saturday for a “Mohala Mai 2018” celebration of hula and Music. The award-winning music groups Keauhou and Na Hoa will join them.

In April, Napua and Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka were honored as overall champions at the annual Merrie Monarch Festival. The kumu hula also received nine Na Hoku Hanohano nominations for her latest album, “Makawalu,” including Album of the Year, Female Vocalist, Hawaiian Music Album and Haku Mele.

The daughter of celebrated Hawaiian entertainer Carmen Hulu Lindsey, it was a given that Napua would follow a creative path.

“I think hula was always going to be my destiny,” she says. “As a child, I always felt a little different because I was obsessing about the art form.”

Gifted with a beautiful singing voice, Napua waited until 2007 to debut this aspect of her talent. Blending Hawaiian standards like John Almeida’s “Lovely Sunrise Haleakala” and Lena Machado“s “None Hula” (where Napua is joined by her mother on vocals), with new compositions such as “Lawakua,” her marvelous debut album, “Pihana,” received six nominations at the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, and won Female Vocalist of the Year.

Kumu Hula Napua Greig • Photo courtesy the MACC

Her impressive follow-up, “Mohalu,” mixed original compositions with hula favorites and chant. It won four Hoku Awards in 2011, including Female Vocalist of the Year, Hawaiian Album of the Year and Favorite Entertainer.

Napua was recently featured in ‘Oiwi TV’s third season of “Mele ma ka Lihiwai,” celebrating Hawaii’s rich musical culture.

Major winners at the 2017 Hoku Awards, Keauhou earned nine awards for their self-titled debut album. And this year they won four awards, including Hawaiian Music Album for their follow-up, “I Ke Ko A Ke Au.” The prolific group, which features Jonah Solatorio, and brothers Zachary Lum and Nicholas Lum, just released a new CD, “Ua Ko, Ua ‘Aina.”

The acclaimed traditional Hawaiian group Na Hoa is also a big Hoku winner. In 2013, they won four awards, including Hawaiian Music Album and Group of the Year. Keoni Souza, Ikaika Blackburn and Halehaku Seabury’s latest album, “Aloha from Na Hoa,” was released in April, featuring updates of favorites like Sol Hoopii’s “Iniki Malie” and Helen Lindsey Parker’s “Olu O Pu’ulani.”

* * *

Harold Lopez-Nussa (from left), Gaston Joya and Ruy Lopez-Nussa bring Cuban jazz to the MACC tonight.• Photo courtesy the MACC

The legendary lead singer of Aerosmith, one of the greatest rock bands of all time, Steven Tyler will make his MACC solo debut in concert on Dec. 27. Focusing on Aerosmith’s most loved hits, Tyler has been touring this year with Nashville-based Loving Mary Band who will back him during his Maui show.

Usually closing out the year performing a few songs at Shep Gordon’s New Year’s Eve benefit for the Maui Food Bank and the MACC, this will mark the first time Tyler’s played a major solo concert on his home island.

Tickets go on sale to MACC members on Saturday.

* * *

Lahaina Strong, a major benefit for families displaced by the recent westside fire, will be presented at the Lahaina Recreation Center from 1 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Musicians performing include Willie K, Amy Hanaiali’i, John Cruz, Na Wai Eha, Darren Benitez, Ke Kaa Jeep the Ohana Kekona, Matagi, Nuff Sedd & Pi’ilani Arias, Ekolu, Kapali Keahi & Lahaina Grown, Damon Williams, Bruddah Waltah and Loeka Longakit.

Low chairs, umbrellas, small coolers and pop-up tents will be allowed in permitted locations. No outside food is allowed. Parking is available at the baseball fields behind the Recreation Center. Handicapped parking is available at the Lahaina Aquatic Center.

• Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 day of show, with kids 10 and younger admitted free. Advance tickets are available at all Minit Stop locations. For more information, call 216-0257, 298-4133 or 276-7685.

* * *

A stellar lineup will perform at Emmanuel Lutheran School Maui’s annual Pumpkin Fest from 4 to 10 p.m. Friday in Kahului. Entertainers include John Cruz (at 4:45 p.m.), Eric Gilliom and Barry Flanagan (at 5:30 p.m.), and Amy Hanaiali’i (at 8 p.m.). Admission is free. The festival also features a silent auction, games, crafts and pumpkins. For more information, visit www.els-maui.org.

* * *

A Moonlight Mele benefit concert on Saturday at 5 p.m. for the Maui Historical Society at the Hale Ho’ike’ike at the Bailey House in Wailuku, will feature music by George Kahumoku, Jr. and friends, students from the University of Hawaii Maui Institute of Hawaiian Music and Neil Yamamura and the La’au Street String Band.

• General admission is $5 at the door. MHS Kia’i members and children are admitted free. For more information, call 244-3326.

* * *

Celebrated Cuban pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa will perform with his trio featuring Ruy Lopez-Nussa and Gaston Joya in the MACC’s Castle Theater at 7:30 tonight.

As a scion of an illustrious musical family, Lopez-Nussa is one of the brightest lights on Havana’s thriving jazz scene. The son of drummer Ruy Lopez-Nussa and nephew of pianist Ernan Lopez-Nussa, he gained international attention when he won top honors at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Piano Competition in 2005.

Growing up in a Havana neighborhood known for its folkloric Afro-Cuban ceremonies he recalled: “There would be two or three ceremonies each week, and I could hear them from my house. What I soaked in there has never left me.”

He didn’t begin playing jazz until the age of 18.

“Jazz was scary,” he reported. “Improvisation was scary.”

Yet he felt emboldened by Herbie Hancock’s 1996 album “The New Standard” of jazz interpretations of pop, rock and R&B songs.

“That gave me new ideas about what was possible, and what I could do.”

Lopez-Nussa’s music reflects the full range and richness of Cuban music — from classical, folkloric and popular elements, to jazz improvisation. Early on, he recorded Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Fourth Piano Concerto” with Cuba’s National Symphony Orchestra; and was featured on the album “Ninety Miles,” playing alongside jazz stars David Sanchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris; as well as on “Esencial” by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer.

Reviewing his latest recording, “Un Dia Calquier” (“Just Another Day”), NPR noted: “It’s not an exaggeration to say Cuba has produced it’s share and more of amazing pianists whose influence reach far beyond the shores of the island nation. [Lopez-Nussa’s] new album is the best example yet of his talents as a player and writer.”

While an All About Jazz review praised: “Prodigious pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa has mastered the art of jazz piano by maintaining his individual style, enhanced by an innate sense of rhythm that Cuban pianists possess, thus he does not play or sound like anyone.”

• The Harold Lopez-Nussa Trio performs tonight at 7:30 in the MACC’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $30, $50 and $65 (plus applicable fees), with a 10% discount for MACC members and half-price for kids 12 and younger.

* * *

The Maui Chamber Orchestra presents an all-Beethoven concert at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday featuring guest pianist Jacopo Giacopuzzi.

Trained at the Liszt Hochschule fur Musik in Germany, the International Piano Academy of Imola in Italy and the University of Southern California, Giacopuzzi has been praised for technical assurance that “astounds,” with an “intuitive style that wins the audience.”

The program includes Beethoven’s famous “Piano Concerto No. 5,” known as the “Emperor,” which was the culmination and termination of the composer’s heroic phase.

The orchestra, directed by Robert E. Wills, will perform Beethoven’s rarely heard “Symphony No. 4,” and open the concert with the “Overture from Eggmont (Opus 84),” composed during the Napoleonic Wars, a set of incidental music written for Goethe’s 1787 play of the same name.

The Sunday concert will be preceded by a “Talk Story with the Artists” at 3:30 p.m. for ticketed patrons.

• Tickets range from $27 to $55, and are available at the Historic Iao Theater box office, by calling 242-6969, and online at mauionstage.com or at mauichamberorchestra.org.

* * *

Anyone who appreciates African/Middle Eastern music will not want to miss Alsarah & the Nubatones, who will perform at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13 at the MACC’s Castle Theater.

Born in Sudan and now residing in Brooklyn, N.Y., Alsarah and her band are mesmerizing in concert, uniquely fusing traditional and contemporary influences.

“Her voice evokes the aura of a Sudanese queen,” praised France’s Next Liberation. “Her music speaks of immigration, by choice or by force, and goes from electronic to Nubian-inspired ’70s pop music, to NorthAfrican Arabic music.”

• Tickets are $40 (plus applicable fees), with a 10% discount for MACC members and half-price for kids 12 and younger.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper?
     
Support Local Journalism on Maui

Only $99/year

Subscribe Today