Related: Jay Blakesberg & Alan Paul’s IGE 2018 Barcelona Diary: Sagrada Familia & Royal Academy Of Fine Arts Gala īeyond the musical connections and performances, IGE participants offer direct benefit to a broad coalition of Kaua’i social, cultural, environmental, and artistic non-profits and artist communities. Grateful Aloha Immersion participants enjoy nightly concerts and unique musical performances across a palette of tropical atmospheric venues ranging from state of the art concert halls to mind-blowing botanical gardens, magical pavilions to enchanted churches, grand estates to iconic restaurants. Participants foster community with their favorite musical icons while experiencing larger-scale concerts, intimate collaborations of curated supergroups, and intercultural jams, as well as significant performances by legendary Hawaiian master musicians, local artists, and dance troupes.
Immersion concerts and jams integrate Mainland Musical Ambassadors with the finest of Kaua’i and islandwide Hawaiian players for a series of five public performances and additional concerts exclusively for the handful of IGE participants over the course of nine days and eight nights.īy design, participants are woven within the fabric of every unique, daily experience as together with their favorite musical icons they encounter the tropical splendor of Kaua’i and the richness of Hawaiian culture. Through the intimate IGE Music and Art Immersion experience, limited to 150 participants, boundaries dissolve between musicians and fans, performers and spectators, participants and environments at a variety of dynamic venues across the island. The Kaua’i Immersion event, set to take place from January 3rd–11th, 2022, will welcome an artist collective featuring Nicki Bluhm, Holly Bowling, Matt Butler, James Casey, Chris Chew, Natalie Cressman, Ian Faquini, Jennifer Hartswick, Vince Herman, Ross James, Led Kaapana, Eric Krasno, Scott Law, Grahame Lesh, Bill and Jilian Nershi, Elliott Peck, Peter Rowan, and more to be announced. The event aims to offer a unique opportunity to join in musical celebration with the Kaua’i community for the benefit of a broad range of island nonprofit organizations. This shop is generally considered the best shaved ice in Waikiki, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually pretty good.Īt the end of the day, hula dancers from Måanoa Elementary School and Stevenson Middle School entertained us.Innovative Giving Enhancement (IGE) has announced the dates and initial artist collective for its 2022 event in Kaua’i, HI, billed as Grateful Aloha.
The audience wandered in and out during the day, with several tripods holding movie cameras that captured the entire day’s performances.ĭuring the break, I walked out to the street and had my first shaved ice with ice cream. The entire presentation was performed outdoors in the courtyard of the Royal Hawaiian Center.
with Enosa Lyman (12 – lower left), Tal Misailidis (13, upper left and lower middle), Pono Fernandez (15, top-middle), and Milie Lyman (17, right column).īetween steel guitar songs, we were presented with a hula dance by Kapuanani Greene. This time, there were a series of four young players, as seen above. Greg Sardinha completed the morning session.Īfter a mid-day break for lunch, the festival continued. His steel guitar was a dual arrangement, as seen in the rightmost image.
The third professional player was Jeff Au Hoy. Next up was Kapono Lopes, playing the steel guitar seen top-left. Kaipo Asing on acoustic guitar, and Helene Woodward on upright bass remained on stage the entire day, providing accompaniment. The first steel guitarist was Steve Cheney, seen above. The camera club that I joined, Eyes of Hawaii, was invited to document the festival. Above, you can listen to Målie Lyman (age 17), one of the young players singing Sophisticated Hula. There were four professional steel guitar players in the morning, and four young players in the afternoon.
It was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID restrictions, and this year was constrained to a single day’s event instead of the normal week. This past Saturday was the 11th annual Steel Guitar Festival.