Calling all songwriters and recording musicians to Kauai next February 16-18, 2007 for a songwriting and recording workshop. Award-winning recording artists Kathy Mattea and Jon Vezner are pooling their talents with Berklee College of Music professors Stephen Webber and Pat Pattison in a workshop that will show you how to translate your musical visions into songs that work, then turn those songs into top-quality recordings that showcase you at your best. For info and registration, visit www.steelgrass.org.

Just a reminder that Kenneth Makuakāne will be at Ho‘okani Mānoa tomorrow (Friday) evening. More information and directions are available on his blog. It is FREE and always a must-see event. He will also perform at the Borders in Hilo on Saturday, Dec. 2, and the Borders in Kona on Sunday, Dec. 3, both at 2PM. I’ll be with him, so if you’re on Hawai‘i island, drop by and say hi!

Kenneth and I are back in writing mode again, preparing material for two new recording projects. I’ll leave it to him to provide details whenever he is ready on his blog. I was worried about finding a groove again, but so far it seems we haven’t missed a step, and things are flowing nicely again as when we started working on what eventually became Makuakāne last year.

I recently ran across this search page on Borders website which allows you to easily find events at their many stores. If you search for “Honolulu” and select a radius of 200 miles it will display all of the Borders stores in the state, and you can then search for performances at each one. Keali‘i Reichel, Kenneth Makuakāne, Keahiwai, Nā Leo, Brittni Paiva and John Cruz are just a handful of the Hawai‘i artists who will make appearances at Borders stores in Hawai‘i this month to promote their new releases.

Mahalo to my colleague Bob Stauffer at Alu Like, Inc. for forwarding this article from the Guardian (United Kingdom) regarding the growing popularity of the ‘ukulele in the United Kingdom, particularly in schools.

TerritorialAirwaves.com is now on the air and will provide a multi-media extension of the long running radio broadcast. Taken from the 10,000+ recordings in the Territorial Airwaves Archives, host Harry B. Soria provides a virtual museum filled with displays devoted to the preservation and perpetuation of traditional Hawaiian music.

Nā Palapalai has releasted its third CD entitled Nā Pua Hae Hawai‘i and it is available now. John Berger reviews it in his latest Island Mele column. I am trying to get permission to podcast a cut or two but no word yet.

Kenneth will be making two appearances this weekend at the Mission House Museum Christmas Craft Fair. He performs tomorrow (Saturday) from 9-10AM and on Sunday from 3-4PM. These are the first of a series of performances where he will be performing material from his first solo Hawaiian album, Makuakane. He’ll be at Ho‘okani Mānoa next Friday evening, at the Borders in Hilo next Saturday, Dec. 2, and the Borders in Kona on Sunday, Dec. 2. He may have a scrub bass player in tow for the Hawai‘i island gigs.

I came across this article on Iz a few days ago. Nothing terribly new in there, but a good primer for those who are only now becoming familiar with Iz due to the increasing popularity around the world.

The chairman of the Hawaii Tourism Authority urged some 900 tourism executives to put traditional Hawaiian music back into hotels, restaurants and shops and to take a greater responsibility in perpetuating the culture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be in Waikīkī in the middle of the week and have to decide which of the many wonderful Hawaiian artists to go listen to, instead of struggling to simply find one, as I often do?

Henry Kapono has posted a video clip of his performing Hawai‘i Pono‘ī and Nā Ali‘i (in a Jimi Hendrix style and complete with dancers) on his MySpace.com site. It is an excerpt from his TV Special “The Wild Hawaiian” and is wild indeed.

I was at the Society Ethnomusicology conference for the past few days. I chaired a panel on the Hawaiian guitar on Thursday, and saw two very nice presentations, the first by a professor from Japan on the electrification of the steel guitar, and the second on the possibility that the use open tunings in slack key guitar was perhaps introduced with the arrival of paniolo and their guitars, and not necessarily a later innovation. The professor from the university in Vera Cruz provided some very persuasive evidence in the form of 18th century notation from the area that was in an open tuning (I believe it was what we refer to as “taro patch” but did not take notes during his presentation). I need to email him and request a copy of his presentation, it was very compelling.

There was an amazing panel on Friday which was chaired by Dr. Amy Ku‘uleialoha Stillman from the University of Michigan and discussed the topic “Decolonizing Hawaiian Ethnomusicology.” Participants included Dr. Jon Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio and Victoria Holt-Takamine from UH-Manoa, my colleague from UH-Hilo Dr. Kalena Silva, and Randy Kamuela Fong from Kamehameha Schools. It was absolutely incredible, and presented in front of packed room at the Marriot in Waikīkī. They provided an diverse range of experience in Hawaiian music and dance, and which emphasized, to me, the need for the Hawaiian people – dancers, performers, composers and scholars – to define a Hawaiian musicology on their own terms. And as one panelist mentioned, in reality it has already happened. Perhaps it is simply for those in attendance to recognize that fact. Bravo.

Keola Beamer will use Hawaiian Slack Key guitar tunings to interpret the works of classical composers, resulting in a romantic, winter oriented album that uniquely blends both the Hawaiian Slack Key and classical music traditions. Ka Hikina O Ka Kau (The Coming Of The Snow) features eighteen arrangements of classical compositions by Satie, Ravel, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dowland, Piazzolla and others, as well as two more Hawaiian inspired pieces. It will be available on January 7, 2007, and of course will be featured in a Nahenahe.net podcast just prior to or shortly after release.

Keali’i Reichel will guest-star with Ho‘okena when they stage their annual Christmas concert, at 7 p.m. Dec. 10 at the Hibiscus Room of the Ala Moana hotel. Tickets are $65 for adults, $32.50 for children 4 to 11. Call 955-4811 for reservations.

My friend Conn in Ireland did a few podcasts recently where he talked about the Wiki technology that runs Wikipedia and other such community-editable sites. He also talked about me a bit in his latest, and I think he’s talking about Nahenahe.net, some of my other work and how we have influenced each other’s work in our respective languages (Conn, if you read this, correct me if I’m wrong). You can listen to the podcast here, and about 55 seconds in you’ll hear me say “Wiki – it means ‘fast’” in Irish.

Conn wrote a piece in one of his other blogs in reply to the question Can you learn Irish by listening my podcasts? Maybe not learn, but it certainly is an excellent resources for students of the language such as my self to help our listening skills, and I’ve received the same kind of feedback from students regarding my doing the Nahenahe.net podcasts in Hawaiian. I ran into a Hawaiian language instructor from Kamehameha Schools who thanked me for doing them as well, and it was certainly encouraging to hear that he and others tuning in and using them in that way.

Hapa and Ernie Cruz, Jr. will be performing at the Kāko‘o ‘Ōiwi concert on November 21 at Punahou School. Tickets are $20-50 and are available at honoluluboxoffice.com or by phone at (808) 550-TIKS. Visit nativehawaii.org for more information

Billy V.’s Hawaiian-Music.net is getting a face-lift and getting the benefit of moving to WordPress, the same blogging software I use here at Nahenahe. Looking good, Billy V.! I wonder if anybody just calls him Billy. I tried and it sounds funny to me!

Ululoa Productions of Ha‘ikū, Maui, announces the release of Halelū – Songs of Christmas from Hawai‘i on November 14 (tomorrow!). It is a compilation CD featuring traditional and contemporary songs of the season by the artists who record at Ululoa. Included in the release are Maui artists Ahumanu, Ata Damasco, Cody Pueo Pata, the Hula Honeys, Ginger Johnson and Robyn Kneubuhl; Gypsy Pacific, Kaiolohia Funes Smith, Lei‘ohu Ryder, as well as Big Island artists Kamakele “Bulla” Ka‘iliwai and Leimana Abenes.

The artists and producers have all contributed their time and talents to Halelū – Songs of Christmas from Hawai‘i. All profits from the sale of this CD benefit the Maui Food Bank and The Neighborhood Place of Wailuku.

Enjoy a promotional concert on Friday, November 24, at Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center, Kahului, Maui. Scheduled to perform are Gypsy Pacific, Lei‘ohu Ryder, Ata Damasco and Ahumanu. Performance starts at noon and will feature some of the songs from this release.

Kenneth Makuakāne has a plethora of promotional performances coming up on Maui, Hawai‘i island and O‘ahu in the coming month. Many of them are at the various Border’s locations, so stop by, talk story, and get your copy of Makuakāne autographed, or pick one up as a Christmas gift. The biggie is his appearance at the Ho‘okani M
ānoa event, which is always a must-see for folks on O‘ahu. He will be the featured artist in the Ho‘okani Mānoa Reminisces 2006 on December 1.