Masters of Hawaiian Music

Tickets are $27 (including  $2 service charge). 

They are also available through Hold My Ticket (112 2nd St SW), 505-886-1251, Monday to Friday 9 AM - 6 PM, Sat & Sun 11 AM - 6 PM.

We'll be hosting slack key guitar and ukulele workshops in conjunction with this concert.  And come early as we'll have a free hula demonstration and workshop from 7 to 7:30, presented by Cindi Heffner and Ha`aheo O Hawai`i.  A big thanks so Cindi and all the hula folks for their support and assistance with show.

Four-time Grammy-winner, master slack key guitarist George Kahumoku Jr. [web site | Amazon.com], known as "Hawai'i's Renaissance Man," is also a multiple Na Hōkū Hanohano (Hawaiian Grammy) Award winner. He is also a vocalist, storyteller, songwriter & author, world-traveling performer, as well as a high school and college teacher, artist and sculptor, farmer, and chef (traditional Hawaiian cuisine). George features the delightful experience of kī-hō'alu (slack key guitar)—the distinctly Hawaiian style of open tunings.

George will be joined by National Heritage Fellow Uncle Richard Ho'opi'i, renowned for traditional Hawaiian falsetto singing and 'ukulele, and by son Keoki Kahumoku, both featured on the Grammy-winning CDs. One of the great traditions in Hawaiian Slack Key guitar—indeed in all Hawaiian culture—is the passing on of music and practices from one generation to the next. This concert offers you the rare opportunity to experience the warm bond of father and son, sharing a slack key genealogy even as each makes ki-ho'alu (slack key) stylings his own.

In February of 2006, George and fellow slack key artists and producers were thrilled to receive the Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Album for their compilation recording, Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Vol. 1: Live in Concert from Maui. But George's Grammy fame doesn’t stop there: The sequels to this recording, Legends of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar: Live from Maui, which includes additional artists (Dennis Kamakahi, Martin Pahinui, and Richard Ho'opi'i) won the 2007 Grammy and then in 2008, Treasures of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar won the Grammy Award. In 2009, The Spirit of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar was an honored Grammy nominee and the newest compilation. Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Vol. 2 was released in 2010. All of these recordings are compilations from George's weekly Wednesday night show, the prestigious Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Concert Series at the Napili Kai Beach Resort on Maui. George is the musical host and features a different solo artist each week. This is the first long-running concert hall setting in Hawaii created to feature the great slack key performers of today.

His newest release, Wao Akua: Forest of the Gods, his finest work to date, is a solo CD inspired by the forests of Maui. It was nominated for a 2012 Grammy in the Regional Roots category, now that the Hawaiian Music category no longer exists. In 2011, George was also asked to play on the soundtrack of the film "The Descendants," starring George Clooney.

Fifth generation slack-key guitarist Keoki Kahumoku began performing with his father, George Kahumoku Jr., and his uncle, Moses Kahumoku, in 1990 at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on the Big Island of Hawai'i. In 1992, Keoki and his family moved to the Island of Maui, to perform at the Westin Maui in Ka'anapali. Wayne Harada, entertainment writer for the Honolulu Advertiser, said, "Keoki Kahumoku is one of his generation's masters of the stroke and the voice."

Uncle Richard Ho'opi'i is one of Hawai'i's most beloved singers. Best known as one half of the popular Maui duo, The Ho'opi'i Brothers, he has practiced the traditional Hawaiian art of leo ki'eki'e (falsetto) for most of his life. He and his brother, Solomon (his life-long singing partner) were recipients in 1997 of the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Folk Heritage Fellowship, America's highest honor for traditional artists.