Chamber Music fest serves up a tasty mix

The Hawaii Chamber Music Festival returns this month with a broader musical scope than ever, acclaimed musicians and great food at unusual yet enticing venues around Honolulu.

The festival’s Ellen Masaki Ohana Series: Global Expressions concert series will present concerts from June 14-24 in venues ranging from a seaside mansion on Maunalua Bay to Aloha Tower. The series is named for the late piano teacher whose influence on Hawaii’s classical music scene is still felt to this day. Her school, now run by her daughter Nancy Masaki, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and is one of the sponsors of the festival.

“We’ve expanded our offerings, so this year we have seven concerts,” said bassist Christopher Yick, who founded the festival in 2018. “I think what’s fantastic about this season in particular is that we’re adding high-level opera singers. … With the addition of voice, we can obviously feature the piano now and we can also do a lot of collaborations with strings.”

Three up-and-coming opera singers will appear at the festival: Colin Ramsey, described in Opera Today as having a “majestic, rotund, ravishing bass”; mezzo-soprano Christina Pezzarossi, praised for her “fleet vocal technique” and “resonant, smoky mezzo”; and soprano Natalia Santaliz, a native of Puerto Rico who has received acclaim from the Latin American press.

Yick, an Iolani graduate whose musical talents earned him scholarships through high school and music school, established the festival as a way to give young local musicians the chance to learn and play alongside world-class musicians. About 20 local students are selected each year for coaching sessions with the professionals and then perform with them at the concerts.

“Our young artists’ program, which is our tuition-free summer program, is still the core of our festival,” Yick said.

The festival has formed a partnership with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which is sending over a quartet that will work with the students and perform at some of the concerts. “They are actually one of the few conservatories that offer a graduate degree in chamber music,” Yick said.

Festival highlights:

>> “Old World vs. New World,” a fundraiser for the Hawaii Children’s Cancer Foundation, features opera favorites served with wine pairings curated by master sommelier Patrick Okubo. Two performances on Wednesday, at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 5 and 7 p.m., respectively), at Stage Restaurant in the Honolulu Design Center.

>> A “Songs by the Sea” concert of Italian music is presented at the Bayer Estate on Maunalua Bay and served with pizza by popular street vendor Fatto a Mano, at 7 p.m. Friday.

>> The Kahala Hotel and Resort will host a June 21 performance at 6 p.m. featuring festival headliners Sean Kennard, a former student of Ellen Masaki; violinist Stefan Jackiw; and cellist Michael Nicolas. “It’s a concert that celebrates World Music Day, and they’ll be performing piano trios by Rachmaninoff and Mendelssohn,” said Yick, calling the group “our ‘superstar’ trio.”

>> A June 23 concert at Aloha Tower Marketplace Sunset Room at 7 p.m. spotlights former students of Ellen Masaki, who will take turns playing movements from Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” with the orchestral ensemble playing the famous “Promenade” theme. Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky are also on the program.

>> The final concert, at 4:30 p.m. June 24 at Orvis Auditorium at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, features clarinetist Yoonah Kim playing George Gershwin’s popular “Rhapsody in Blue,” transcribed for clarinet and orchestra. Also on the program is a “dramatic” composition by Logyn Okuda, an Iolani grad currently studying composition in college in Southern California. His work “Return to Sky,” for string orchestra and piano, represents “the storyline of a peaceful planet plunged into chaos and plague,” Yick said. “It’s kind of a narrative of his life in its current chapter, because he graduated high school during COVID.”

Go to hawaiicmf.org/globalexpressions for information and to purchase tickets. Prices range from $15-$25 for music-only events to $250 for a concert with dinner for two. Donations to support the nonprofit festival are welcome.

>> Piano music lovers also might be interested in Piano Bash!, the finale of the annual Aloha International Piano Festival. It’s at 4 p.m. June 18 at Orvis Auditorium and features Jon Nakamatsu, Alan Chow, Noriko Uenaka and Lisa Nakamichi playing Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Aaron Copland and Charles Gounod in works for four hands on one piano or for two pianos. Tickets are $30; go to alohapianofestival.org.