A List 4/14/03 HAWAIIAN 'SLACK-KEY' GUITARIST TO PERFORM AT ST. LAWRENCE CANTON - Hawaiian slack-key guitarist George Kahumoku Jr. will be featured in "On the Beach at Waikiki," a concert of Hawaiian music at St. Lawrence University on Thursday, April 17. He will be joined by the music department's Special Productions Ensemble, directed by David Henderson, which will be performing slack-key guitar classics, mele (chants) composed by Queen Lili'uokalani and Hawaiiana from the 1910s, '20s, and '30s. "On the Beach at Waikiki" begins with a luau at 5:30 p.m. in Eben Holden Hall. Music will begin at approximately 6 p.m., with Kahumoku taking the stage at about 7 p.m. There will be a $5 per person charge for the luau, which features Hawaiian fish and chicken dishes; the concert is free. Both are open to the public. Kahumoku and hula specialist Nancy Sweeney will be in residence at St. Lawrence April 15-17. Kahumoku will conduct a slack-key guitar workshop on Tuesday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m. in Gilbert Recital Hall, Griffiths Arts Center; it is free and open to all guitarists. Sweeney will give a hula workshop on Wednesday, April 16, at 4:30 p.m. in Eben Holden. This workshop is also free, and is open to all; participants are invited to perform with Kahumoku, Sweeney and the Special Productions Ensemble on Thursday. Kahumoku is a master slack-key guitar player, songwriter, world-wide performer, high school teacher, former principal, sculptor, story-teller and a farmer who has won several state and national awards for his work with the land. He began playing music professionally at the age of 13 and has earned a degree at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. Following a stint working on the Alaska pipeline, he returned to Hawaii and plunged into farming and community efforts such as working with children in native language skills. Kahumoku lives on Maui, where he teaches the Special Motivational Program at Lahainaluna High School. Hawaiian slack-key is one of the great acoustic guitar traditions in the world. In slack-key, some of the strings are slacked from the standard tuning, with the thumb playing the bass while the other fingers play the melody and improvisation in a finger-picked style. The roots of slack-key can be traced to the 1830s, when the guitar was brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Spanish and Mexican cowboys. The Hawaiians quickly adopted the guitar into their culture, creating many ingenious tunings to suit their music, originally to match the key of the vocals. For further information, contact David Henderson at dhenderson@stlawu.edu or the St. Lawrence University music department at 315-229-5192.-30- Back To News Releases Back to St. Lawrence Homepage