Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Mancini has a
soft spot for HawaiiON STAGE
"A Tribute to Henry Mancini": 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday at Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets: $15-$50. Call 792-2000.
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinBalancing the schedules of two careers can test the coping skills of any couple. The potential complications increase when both involve a lot of travel. Monica Mancini and her husband, drummer Gregg Field, reduce the stress and increase their time together by coordinating their schedules.
"We both love to travel and if we can incorporate work into travel that's even better."
Mancini and her husband/musical director are returning to Hawaii for a pair of pops concerts with Matt Catingub and the Honolulu Symphony tomorrow and Saturday. She'll be featuring songs off her self-titled PBS Records/Warner Bros. album, which is a collection of 13 songs composed by her father, the late Henry Mancini.
"Dad wrote this music for symphonies. It's how he intended it to be performed, and I'm really excited about coming back to Hawaii.
"Gregg knows all the tempos so he and the conductor work really closely together anyway, but I also love to interact with the conductor and Matt Catingub is a friend of ours. I know him from being a big band guy ... so working with him (with the Symphony) should be interesting."
She considers the Hawaii shows a homecoming for other reasons.
"We used to go (to Hawaii) for vacation -- for Christmas or during the summer -- back when the Royal Hawaiian was one of the only hotels, and I'm an old Hawaii gal. The minute I get off of the plane and the air hits me it's like I'm home. My husband and I got married there so we're going to go over to Kauai and visit the old wedding stomping grounds."
Henry Mancini received four Oscars and at least 20 Grammys for his work as a composer, arranger and conductor. His daughter is continuing his legacy and says one of the things she enjoyed most about recording her father's songs was approaching them from fresh perspectives.
"I had been thinking about it for some time. I wanted to stay true to dad's melodies and his chord changes because they're so awesome, but I wanted to give (the music) a little bit more of a contemporary edge.
"What I was fearful of was that most of the big tunes are all pretty much associated with different artists, and I wanted to be sure that whatever I did with them was my own.
"I was forced to look at the lyrics and kind of dissect them and find where I fit into the song. 'Moon River' was the hardest."
Click for online
calendars and events.
