Friday evening the ‘Iolani Chorus presented their annual Spring Concert at the beautiful St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Their major work this year was the Requiem by Gabriel Faure. This solemn but beautiful work came off very musically in the church setting, complete with wonderful acoustics and great organ accompaniment realized by John McCreary. Guest soloist baritone Timothy Schulz added his mature voice in the Offertory and Libera me sections. The warm choral tone achieved by the chorus under the direction of John Alexander made this a work to be remembered long after it was finished. After a short intermission, the chorus presented a variety of music starting with a medley from the musical Godspell and ending with a Mark Hayes arrangement of Shut De Do, complete with dance motions. In between, some Hawaiian music was featured, climaxed by John’s composition, Keiki O Ka ‘Aina with tenor soloist senior Brad Lawson, accompanied by ‘Iolani strings, percussion and the chorus. It was a demanding work, especially for the soloist, but Brad performed very well. Other highlights of this portion of the program were the Hokuloa Singers rendition of Andrew Carter’s I Am All-Fair accompanied by organist sophomore Joey Fala and junior Melody Lindsay’s arrangement of a Welsh traditional song interpolated with Keali’i Reichel’s Kawaipunahele.   Her arrangement was beautiful as was her harp accompaniment. Congratulations to all of the musicians and their conductor, John Alexander, for an evening of wonderful music.

Saturday afternoon at the ‘Iolani Gym, five of our orchestras were featured in a very musical and entertaining program. The Lower School Beginning Orchestra opened the program with four short pieces, demonstrating how much they have learned since the beginning of the year. They were followed by a combination of the Lower School Advanced Orchestra and Orchestra 1, playing slightly longer and more difficult but engaging selections.  Orchestra 2 was next, performing an even more challenging program. The level of ability of each group was portrayed to the listeners by the director’s choice of music. The amount of progress being made in technique and musicality is truly amazing. Orchestra 3 finished the delightful afternoon with some very interesting music, including a tone poem about Pegasus featuring a violin solo by Richard Chang and a cello solo by Rachel Smith. The strings were joined by a full wind section from Band 2 for their final two selections, an arrangement of Beethoven’s Hymn to Joy from his 9^th Symphony, followed by an arrangement of Havah Nagila, opening with a beautiful clarinet solo by Cordelia Xie. This arrangement created much musical excitement by gradually increasing the tempo from beginning to end. All of the orchestras performed brilliantly, thanks to the effort of the students under the direction of their teachers, Bill Dick and Kathy Hafner.

Saturday evening, playing to an overflow audience in the Chorus Room, our eight chamber music groups performed string quartet music by Beethoven, Mozart, string quintet music by Mozart, Dvorak and Schubert, a cello quartet by Fitzenhagen, a woodwind quintet by Beethoven and a special arrangement of selections from Richard Rodgers’ The Sound of Music, arranged by Wade Butin for a Horn quartet, complete with appropriate costumes and vocal effects. This Horn quartet provided some laughter and relaxation from a program of rather serious music. Congratulations to all of the students musicians and their coaches, Joanna Morrison, Lifen Anthony, Steven Flanter, Scott Anderson, Darel Stark and Wade Butin, all members of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and orchestra teacher Kathy Hafner who administers the program.