Hawaii
KRALL to Church: Ticket sales for 15-year-old soprano sensation Charlotte Church Aug. 11 at the Blaisdell Arena are so great that she's already the Honolulu Symphony's highest grossing event ever. Maestro Samuel Wong can point with pride to the fact that Church chose only four cities for her summer tour: London with Luciano Pavarotti, L.A. at the Hollywood Bowl, San Diego at Navy Pier and ending in Honolulu ... One of the Symphony's previous soloists, jazz singer/pianist Diana Krall premiered renditions of tunes that were to be on her next CD while she was performing here with the Symphony. "The Look of Love" will be released Sept. 18 ... Charlotte Church sets
record for symphonyTAKING in a Diana Krall concert at the Hollywood Bowl last week was former isle resident Stan Rivera, now a restaurateur in California. He was just in Honolulu celebrating his 65th birthday and No. 2 son Keith, assistant manager of the Halekulani, where Krall stayed during her concertizing here, got two tickets for dad to the sold-out concert. In addition, another localite, Ira Nepus, who played in the band backing Krall at the Bowl, got him backstage passes, where they had their photos taken with the singer. Talk about your great birthday presents ...
HE'S come a long way, baby, from his teenage performances at the C'est Si Bon showroom of the Pagoda Hotel many years ago. Illusionist David Copperfield now has 12 performances slated for the Blaisdell Concert Hall between Aug. 18 and 26. Tickets are $85 and $60 for the evening performances, or $70 and $55 for the matinees ...
Cheering the leaders
YOUNG girls today needn't aspire to be cheerleaders for the boys, but do a little quarterbacking of their own. Sacred Hearts Academy this week is holding its fourth annual Economic Summit for Girls in grades eight through 10. Kicking off the summit was trail-blazing female exec Lily Yao, newly installed chairwoman of the Chamber of Commerce. Sophomore Jennifer Yiu summed up her remarks: "Mrs. Yao told us we can be just as successful as a man in any job, but we must have a plan, work extremely hard and take risks to realize our dreams." The summit concludes tomorrow with Leslie Wilkins, chairwoman of the Hawaii State commission on the Status of Women ...WHEN LiAnn Venegas walked down the aisle to meet her groom, Kirk Seely of Kirkland, Wash., it was done in a non-traditional way. Both her parents, Sharon and Hector Venegas, walked down the aisle with her and instead of traditional wedding music, Brother Noland Conjugacion sang "Hawaiian Lullaby," a song written by Hector with musician Peter Moon ...
Wiley traveler
BACK doing her "50-Plus and Fabulous" radio show on KHVH Saturday was licensed sexologist Dr. Diana Wiley. Despite a whirlwind six-week vacation, Dr. Wiley says she's happy to be home with some interesting stories. She presented a paper in Paris to the World Congress for Sexology and spoke about sex to some 600,000 Catholics on Irish radio. Most listeners who called in seemed to be delighted, she reports, but one priest in the listening audience who called in was not ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com