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Monday, July 17, 2000

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
A bus stop on east side of Pali Highway near
Lami Road is not quite straight.

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Trouble is, the earth isn't flat all over the way it pretty much is at sea level. We've got hills and valleys and grades and precipices and whatnot. So, when we build something, the ol' plumb bob comes in handy to make sure the vertical parts are actually vertical.

Which brings us to the new prefab bus shelters being installed by the city. They bolt together like an Erector set and are attached directly to the sidewalk. But if the sidewalk is tilted ... the bus shelter is tilted too. Sometimes.

Take a look at this bus shelter on Pali Highway. It, and the bus-stop sign next to it, are at 90-degree right angles to the sidewalk, but aren't parallel with the fence behind it, which is actually vertical.

Yet, nearly across the street, on a slightly steeper grade, the prefab bus shelter is in alignment with everything else, but it's not at right angles to the sidewalk. Clearly, the city construction crew spent a little more time there, or at least had a plumb bob handy.

According to Paul Steffens of the bus section of the city's transportation services department, the Nuuanu bus shelters were among the first installed and were sort of test models. "There are two versions, a smaller one and a larger one, and they install slightly differently," said Steffens. "Different contractors installed them, them. Once all the shelters are in place, we'll go back and tweak those that might need it."

The contest, sponsored by the Lotte Lehmann Foundation and Hawaii Public Radio, is dedicated to the art song, which "Great Songs" host Gary Hickling describes as "a simple poem set for trained voice and piano."

Some widely known examples include "O Sole Mio," Brahms' "Lullabye" and Schubert's "Ave Maria."

Says Hickling, "Mozart, Ravel, Copland and Bernstein all composed music for poems so they could be sung, and that is the essence of art song: poetry expressed in song, two arts that combine to form something greater than their parts."

More than 40 people entered the contest by singing and recording an art song. The semifinalists and their songs are:

Susan Cantonwine; "Gretchen am Spinnrade" by Schubert
Mary Chestnut; "Les Berceau" by Faure
Julianne Cross; "Zueignung" by Richard Strauss
Ella Edwards; "Ride on, King Jesus"
Eric Haines; "Zueignung"
Inki Hitomi-Miasaki; "Akatonbo"
Tara Hunt; "C'est l'exstase" by DeBussy
Malia Ka'ai; "Ku'u ipo i ka he'e" by Likelike
Susan McCreary; "La Maja Dolorosa" by Granados
Aaron Sala; "Fetes" by Hahn
Jordan Shanahan; "The Vagabond" by Vaughan Williams
Sherry Wong; "Du bist die Ruh" by Schubert

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