Sep
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“The Lion King” vs. the Cello King
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9
Honolulu Symphony maestro Andreas Delfs told the Honolulu Advertiser that his friend Yo-Yo Ma, the world’s most famous cellist, would love to play for you, but he’s scheduled two years in advance and the Symphony has no guaranteed place to play.
The Symphony was clawing its way to financial stability when it was evicted from Blaisdell for “The Lion King,” and Delfs fears another eviction for another Broadway show would kill the orchestra for good.
“The Lion King” is a pretty good musical but it’s not so good as to be worth killing our symphony, and that goes for every other musical I’ve ever heard.
Live symphonic music enriches our children, some of whom may be inspired to become good enough musicians to play in a Broadway pit one day, and it provides inspiration to musicians of all sorts including those playing Hawaiian music and jazz.
I feel so strongly about this that I have joined the Honolulu Symphony board and I am going to make it my business to figure out who’s really for music and music education in our islands and who’s not. We need to nurture all musics and I expect I will write more about this in the future.
Shameless plug: I donate several hours of time a week preparing a two-hour program that airs live on Hawaii Public Radio every Saturday morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., a sort-of classical music sampler called “Howard’s Day Off,” and if you’re up that early I hope you’ll tune in. I’m grateful to the management of KGMB9 for agreeing in a side letter to my contract to allow me to perform this service.
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Your radio show sounds like a perfect segue into the podcast world. I’d listen if I could “time shift” it into my schedule…