HONOKAA -- Frank and Jane Kelsey are the first to arrive at the Honokaa People's Theatre on this wet and windy Friday night in a northeast niche of the Big Island's surly Hamakua coast. The tropically dressed Seattle couple settle into aisle seats in row 29 in the beautifully restored 67-year-old theater in "downtown" Honokaa where the fledgling Hamakua Music Festival has been presenting world-class performers without much fanfare annually since 1994.
The Kelseys made the windy drive from Kona where they're vacationing because of an original piece of music, "Liana's Song," being played tonight by pianist and composer David Burge.
"My 11-year-old granddaughter drowned in a bad spot on the Yuba River a few years back," Jane Kelsey says. "Her name was Liana. It's an unusual spelling, the same as this piece of music. We had to come to hear it and, yes, I expect to cry."
Earlier in the day, singer and dancer Niki Harris, who performed the following night with her father, jazz pianist Gene Harris, stands nearly lip to lip with Honokaa High School senior Maelan Kaleolani Abran, ordering the wannabe singer to make a whirling sound with her lips by rolling them.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Jazz pianist Gene Harris accompanies daughter
Niki Harris at the music festival during the weekend.
"Not in front of everyone," Abran pleads. "Way too embarrassing.""Do it girl, you gotta be able to do it...if you ever want to get up in front of 80,000 people and sing," says Harris, who has been a backup singer and dancer for Madonna the last 11 years.
Harris is talking to music teacher Gary Washburn's music class at Honokaa High where a couple dozen band students sit around clutching instruments, ready to play for their star guest.
Harris sits between a group of slouching boys. She's unable to control herself as rock music is played and sung by the kids. When Abran finally sings a duet, Harris is all smiles and moving hips.
"If you can sing and play an instrument or write your own songs you'll get more work and definitely make more money. Remember that chick singers don't make much just for singing, And if you write your own stuff you get to choose who you play with."
She tells Abran she's got to "open up" her voice.
"Girl, you got a Range Rover trying to come out of a Miata opening," Harris says. "Madonna doesn't have the greatest tone, but she can get that tone real loud."
Harris then uses her sweater as a cocoon around Abran's head. The whirling sound emerges from Abran's mouth and Harris hugs her prodigy.
In the theater's Green Room where performers and friends gather privately before concerts, Grace Walker, owner of Honokaa Trading Co., decorates the sitting area with Hawaiian-style furniture, knick-knacks and plants from her consignment store. The former Lanikai resident hauls items from her antique store a few blocks away, up the narrow steps to the second-floor room above the ticket window and across the hall from the projection booth.
"Gotta make it nice for the artists," says Walker, an active festival volunteer. "We got to show them lots of aloha so they'll come back again to perform in Honokaa."
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Maelan Abran shares a moment with Niki Harris,
who put on a workshop for aspiring singers at Honokaa
High School. Abran, a senior, later got to open
the festival's jazz concert.
Disabled Vietnam veteran Moke Manarpaac, 54, rides his bike down Mamane Street, Honokaa's main drag, wearing a faded Santa Claus hat and carrying a small drum under his right arm. When he sees newcomers, Manarpaac stops to talk story, give advice on where to go and what to see in this tiny coastal plain village of 1,500 residents. Today, he tells visitors "not to miss the music festival.""I'm sorta the unofficial goodwill ambassador of Honokaa," says Manarpaac, who was born and raised here. "The festival is a good thing for the community. I want to give something back to Honokaa."
The two-weekend Hamakua Music Festival has become many things in just four years. It's a true community event run by dozens of unpaid local residents and newcomers who do everything from selling tickets to designing T-shirts to baking cookies. It's an undiscovered treasure where world-class artists are seen in a people-sized setting for just $10. And it's strictly charitable, with organizers more concerned in giving all the profits to the community for music education.
"The original ideal was to bring the Hamakua community together in the preparation of these concerts," said board member Sharon Lorch. "We also wanted to stimulate the local economy by attracting people from other areas of the island and the state, and give people a sense of pride in Hamakua while enjoying music."
The idea began as a single concert when California transplants David and Sherry Pettus moved to Honokaa from California the day after the Hamakua Sugar Mill closed in 1994, putting 800 workers out of work. Walking down Mamane Street, they were struck by how demoralized people were. When they saw the theater where movies were being shown just three nights a week "we thought it would be fun to have a little concert here," said Sherry Pettus.
"We wanted to do something to lift the town's spirit. And we thought it would be fun."
They met with the theater's owner, Dr. Tawn Keeney, an area physician for 20 years.
"Without the theater we couldn't have taken the next step," Sherry says. "Tawn...agreed to let us use it for free because he loves life coming to his theatre; it's part of his vision."
Suddenly Honokaa was going to have a music festival but still had no performers. The Pettus' knew some professional musician friends -- the world famous classical Lanier Trio -- who would be performing on Oahu that December. The musicians agreed to perform in Honokaa.
"We thought if we could get even 50 people to show up and charge like $8 a ticket we could pay for the inter-island air fare," Sherry said.Then David decided to get a jazz musician. He learned that Gene Harris would be traveling from London to Tokyo so he contacted the artist who agreed to make a stopover in Hawaii. The couple then realized that any Hawaii festival would have to include Hawaiian musicians. So they contacted Na Leo Pilimehana, Martin Pahinui and Eddie Kamae.
"Suddenly we had five concerts for five consecutive days and 2,500 tickets to sell," Sherry said.
The day of the first concert David Pettus called three of the four ticket outlets to learn that only eight tickets had been sold; the fourth outlet had sold 50.
"I thought, well, everybody was right when they said we were trying to do the impossible on the Big Island because no one wanted to hear classical music or jazz," David Pettus said.
The Pettus' had money set aside to build a house in Honokaa. While their house was being built, the couple and 9-year-old son lived for 10 months in two tents on the property, using wood pallets for floors. Their tent had two telephone lines, one for festival business.
There was so little money that the Pettus' donated their frequent flyer miles to transport artists from the mainland to Oahu. Once here, Aloha Airlines kicked in 50 percent of the neighbor island tickets, and a few five-star hotels in South Kohala provided accommodations.
That first festival night, jazz lovers lined up just before show time to buy some 400 tickets to see Harris perform. The entire festival sold 1,500 tickets, accounting for a profit of $1,004 that was given to music teacher Washburn to take some band members to Oahu to perform.
In March 1995 the festival was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation, receiving tax exempt status. That year the festival presented six concerts with 2,100 in attendance and five educational activities for about 600 students in grades 3-12. Last year, the festival expanded to include a concert in conjunction with Western Weekend over Memorial Day as well as six concerts attracting 2,450 people, and 11 free educational activities by 12 visiting artists in seven locations from Hilo to Waimea, reaching about 2,100 students.
Gene Harris has returned every year since and this time around donated $1,000 to the festival.
"I keep coming back because of the people involved in doing this," Harris said after Saturday night's concert. "This (event) is so pure. No ego, no hidden agendas, no wheeling and dealing, no this and no that. It's a privilege be a part of this."Harris' concert was recorded by National Public Radio for play at an unscheduled future date. Last year, Keali'i Reichel performed two sold-out concerts.
"You know how to get a hold of Pavarotti?" board member Jackie Horne asks.
Every year since 1995, money has been awarded to music students for scholarships or for music lessons. Last year, the festival raised $18,000 to buy a grand piano for festival and community event use. This year's goal is to raise enough money to pay for a part-time music teacher at Honokaa Elementary School.
The town's old guard slowly is coming around, Sherry Pettus says. Several residents and business people stroll Mamane Street wearing the official T-shirt. Festival posters designed by artist Wailehua Gray are taped in windows of new businesses like the Honokaa Trading Co. as well as decades-old enterprises like the Uptown Barber Shop.
Maelan Abran opened the Harris performance, singing "Cool Operator" to cheering fans and family. The mouth that would only open slightly a few hours ago in Washburn's music class is now wide enough to spit out a cane haul truck. The sound reverberating through the theater proves the point.
As she leaves the stage to a chorus of hana hou, Abran looks at Niki in the front row, smiles, and puts her lips together and makes the lip whirling sound she was too shy to do in class.
Harris yells, "You are on your way Honokaa girl! Now go get it."
Island sounds
What: Hamakua Music Festival
