Brother Noland is among the musicians set to perform during the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s virtual Ki Ho‘alu Guitar Festival on June 28.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions on live music, the Maui Arts & Cultural Center is heading online to present the annual Ki Ho’alu Guitar Festival as a virtual event June 28, featuring some of the finest artists in the slack key guitar and Hawaiian music genres over a three-hour period.

A tribute to Willie K, the festival will include such artists as Brother Noland, Bobby Moderow, George Kuo, Tavana, Danny Carvalho, LT Smooth, Stephen Inglis, Dwight Kanae, Kamuela Kahoano and Ian O’Sullivan.

Brother Noland has been riding out the pandemic with family in Portland, Ore. He was initially stuck there during the lockdown.

“I haven’t performed since March 16,” he explained Monday. “I’ve been here ever since. The silver lining is I’ve spent quality time with my grandkids and my daughter just had a baby.”

Headlining the festival will mark his online debut since public performances were halted in Hawaii. “This is the first time I’m doing something virtual,” he noted.

In October, Brother Noland was honored by the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts with a Na Hoku Hanohano Lifetime Achievement Award.

“That felt like it was time for me to retire,” he said, laughing. “I’m still writing more tunes and I’ve been working with Kapena Bu, Kelly Boy’s (DeLima) son. And I’ve been doing some stuff with Jake (Shimabukuro) too. We’ve got about five songs together.”

One of those songs will be released on Shimabukuro’s next album of “Hualalai,” where Brother Noland plays open slack key and Shimabukuro plays ukulele.

A multi-Hoku winner, Brother Noland is best known for his song “Coconut Girl,” which ushered in the Jawaiian movement. Regularly featured at slack key guitar festivals around the islands, this visionary artist’s music runs the gamut from Hawaiian, Americana and alt-rock, to tropical-flavored jazz, blues and island-style ballads.

Mindful that the festival is dedicated to Willie K, Brother Noland recalled a memorable time when he jammed with Willie on stage.

“I was performing at the Naniloa and he was playing down the street at a pub,” he said. “We went in there and he saw me and called me up to play. It was his rock-and-roll band, he pretty much wasn’t playing any Hawaiian. He said, ‘What you like to do?’ I knew he could rip, so I said, ‘Let’s do (Jimi Hendrix’s) ‘Voodoo Child.’ We jammed that about 15 minutes and he just shredded the guitar, while I was holding the tempo with his band. It was pretty cool.”

Most recently presenting a virtual concert to folks at the Kaunoa Senior Center in Spreckelsville, O’Sullivan has been fortunate during the pandemic to continue teaching guitar and ukulele to students online at Kamehameha School Kapalama.

“I’ve been able to keep up playing guitar and ukulele through teaching, bringing up the next generation,” he reported last week. “I’ve had to learn how to successfully give a digital concert. It’s a different way of engaging. The weirdest thing is finishing a song and then it’s silence. Do I just sit and smile?”

A classically trained guitarist and composer from Oahu’s North Shore, O’Sullivan was the first guitarist from Hawaii to be accepted into the Yale School of Music.

His debut album, “Born and Raised,” was nominated for three Hoku Awards.

“I try to approach Hawaiian music like the classical composers who came before me,” he said.

O’Sullivan and his cousin Patrick Landeza were recently nominated for a Hoku for Hawaiian Slack Key Album of the Year for their collaborative recording, “Kahakauila.”

“It’s my first slack key album, with one of my originals,” he noted.

As the festival is paying homage to Willie K, O’Sullivan hopes to perform a slack key interpretation of “Katchi Katchi Music Makawao.”

“I might do a new arrangement,” he said. “I love the rhythm.”

With the MACC temporarily closed for live events, CEO Art Vento was pleased to be able to offer the free virtual festival. He explained that the MACC usually relies on multiple funding sources to keep events like the slack key festival free to the public, but “those sources have cut back.”

“Last year we had 60,000 people coming to free events,” he said. “The best alternative for the festival is to do it once and broadcast it to all the islands. We’re doing this as a bridge and a hope for a better tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re doing things virtually when possible.”

The 29th annual Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival “Maui Style” virtual webcast will be presented from 1 to 4 p.m. June 28 on the festival’s Facebook page or YouTube channel (Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival). The event is sponsored by the Ki-Ho’alu Foundation, the MACC and The Maui News.

* Jon Woodhouse can be reached at jonwoodh@gmail.com.