On a visit to Hawaii last month, I realized that my precious memories of
Nina Keali'iwahamana are now a matter of public record - recorded, that is,
by public television!  Nina means as much to music lovers in Hawaii as
Callas or Rysanek to most opera fans.  It's obvious that they inhabit
different worlds (besides the happy fact that Nina is very much alive), but
I don't understand why there have to be barriers between those artificial
domains.  The meditations of Ali Akbar Khan, the ecstatic singing of Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan or the Ali Sabri Brothers come from the same place, create
the same joy for me as Placido Domingo's arias, Yo Yo Ma's cello or Simon
Rattle's conducting.  I cannot believe that, regardless of experience with
"ethnic music," anyone who loves music would not immediately and completely
fall under the spell of Nina, a luminous singer of clarity, sincerity, kind
and nourishing humor, deep and affecting emotions.  And the good news is
that now she and REAL Hawaiian music will be much more accessible via a
series of programs from Hawaii Public Television.  It is called "Na Mele,"
music or song, but with the same kind of additional meaning as "lieder" -
not just any song, but the music of a very specific and special kind.

OK, OK, some say, but do we really want to deal with "Hawaiian music" when
the subject is a great singer? Look at it this way:  "Gypsy music" is fine,
but don't confuse it with Hungarian music.  Bartok and Kodaly didn't, at a
time when the rest of the world did, and we are all the richer for it.

The late, somewhat lamented Kodak Hula Show was fine (although too close
for comfort to the Kapiolani tennis courts I frequented), but if you think
it's the same as the "music of Hawaii," you have a great discovery to make.
Don Ho to Nina is what "Rent" is to "La Boheme," Rice's "Aida" to Verdi's.
(Why not include everything in "music"? Hey, I'm broadminded but not
tin-eared.)

The traditions of Hawaiian music in Stuart Yamane's "Na Mele" encompass
sacred ancient rituals, the "art songs" of kupuna (the passing of knowledge
from generation to generation), Leo ki'e ki'e (the uniquely Hawaiian but
more contemporary male falsetto sound), the jazz-equivalent of Hawaiian
nightclub music at its best, and many other categories of the genre.

If you see only one program in the "Na Mele" series, which began last
year, try for the one with Nina, Mahi Beamer and Robert Cazimero (of the
Cazimero Brothers) - three singers passionate about the music, but also
completely at ease with the material, with each other.  If you come to this
performance from opera or lieder, you will instantly recognize excellence
in phrasing, diction, effortless, elegant projection of the very essence of
music.  Go ahead and cross over; what do you have to lose other than little
boxes of artificial categories?

Other outstanding "Na Mele" programs feature many of the great Beamer
clan - Keola, Nola, Moana among them - Genoa Keawe, Jerry Santos & Olomana,
Byron Yasui, Bill Kaiwa, and so on.  Don't let the name Keali'iwahamana
bother you.  This week's San Francisco Opera "Aida" had Diadkova,
Burchuladze and Pyatnychko in the cast, and they were all excellent.  Those
of us embracing Tatar, Bulgarian, Armenian and other exotic divas as long
as they sing well, can certainly accept and relish Nina K.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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