Monthly Archives: November 2016

#GivingTuesday 2016

This year HOT is taking part in #GivingTuesday on Tuesday, November 29th.

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

We would be honored if you gave a contribution, no matter the amount. On #GivingTuesday, call the HOT Box Office at 808.596.7372 to donate over the phone or click here to make an online donation. You may also mail a donation by sending a check in the mail to 848 S. Beretania St. Honolulu, HI 96813.

You may also donate over Facebook through our fundraiser page. Facebook is waving all fees.

 

YOUR DONATION SUPPORTS:

  • Children sharing in the joy of opera. Our nationally recognized education outreach program reaches more than 25,000 students on Oahu and Neighbor Islands annually.
  • Professional symphony musicians. HOT contracts professional musicians up to 10 weeks each year.
  • The only opera company in the state of Hawaii… and the only opera company that gives you the opportunity to see live opera and operetta.
  • The future of opera. We believe in the cultivation and nurturing of young artists through our Mae Z. Orvis Opera Studio programs. Several studio alumni have grown into professional singers on national and international stages.
  • Our community. HOT supports Hawaii’s economy by utilizing local resources – from the carpenters in the scene shop to young singers in the educational outreach programs.mgs_0

Share what inspires you to support HOT by submitting your personal giving story to the #MyGivingStory contest. Winning nonprofits will be awarded $25,000- $10,000 in grants! Learn more.

Modern Luxury Hawai’i – Arts & Philanthropy Issue

SINGING OUT – For its 2016-2017 season, Hawaii Opera Theatre continues to break out of the mold. In January, HOT will debut Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, adapted by acclaimed composer and conductor André Previn. In March, HOT produces the Hawai’i debut of Three Decembers, a bold drama about an aging actress estranged from her children. Some of the reason behind this exciting new direction is Simon Crookall, who took the role of executive director in 2013 and was reappointed as general director this year. Part of his mission is to grow and diversify HOT’s audience. A Brit who sang with the King’s College Choir at Cambridge University, Crookall came to HOT after serving with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Crookall grew up in a musical family; now, his job involves bringing opera to young people. HOT does outreach on four islands, with HOT Express. Last year, HOT visited 73 elementary schools doing a mini-performance of The Magic Flute. At five elementary schools each year, HOT offers a more in-depth program where students learn to perform an existing opera, or create their own. In 2014, the opera organization started a junior studio for teens. HOT also opens up each performance’s final dress rehearsal for middle school and high school students. “When you have a company that has such high resources in terms of music and theater, it would remiss of us if we didn’t offer it to the community,” says Crookall, adding that HOT reaches about 25,000 students each year. For some students, he says, it sparks a passion for music, inspires a career or even instills a future HOT patron. To support this mission, the organization is having its annu8al Opera Ball Nov. 12. The Sheraton Waikiki will be transformed into glittering Paris, with a La Bohème theme.

Modern Luxury Hawai’i

#HOTSpeaks: Baritone Sings to Honor His Father

“If I sing, you are the music.
If I fly, you’re why I’m good.
If my hands can find some magic,
you’re the one who said they could.”

Leslie “Buz” Tennent sat in the Hawaii Opera Theatre rehearsal hall and read aloud the lyrics to “If I sing” from the musical Closer than Ever. The song inspired the name of the November, 2016 concert event with Hawaiʻi Public Radio.

The sold-out tribute concert commemorated the centennial of Buz’s late father and mentor, Arthur Tennent (1916 – 2004). Due to the concert’s popularity, Buz performed a reprise last week at the Mystic Rose Oratory as a benefit for the Hawai’i Vocal Arts Ensemble.

Arthur was an accomplished lieder and artsong singer, and a renowned choral conductor, voice teacher, actor, and author. “He generously shared with me his abundant gifts,” Buz said of his father. “I just thought it would be worthy to give back what he gave to me.”

At both concerts, Buz sang songs his father used to sing and that his father taught him, accompanied on the piano by HOT Education Assistant Eric Schank. Buz was also featured as a soloist at the HOT Opera Ball last year.

As a professor of voice at Chaminade and a private voice teacher, Buz’s life currently revolves around performing and teaching, but that might not have been the case if his father had never pegged him as a baritone and encouraged him to sing an aria in front of a crowd with his high school orchestra.

“He wanted me to sing,” Buz said. “And he was a tremendous teacher.”

Arthur humorously helped his son navigate the complexities of music theory, like the difference between “bel canto” and “can belt-oh,” while gracefully addressing more serious life issues, like coping with rejection.

“He taught me the idea of never giving up, to persevere and persist, and that it’s how we react to circumstances that matters – not that we get discouraged or knocked down, but that we stand up and just keep at it,” Buz said.

As a supportive father, Arthur went to all of Buz’s opera performances, he said, though he wasn’t particularly an opera lover, himself.

But while Buz was pursuing a Master’s in Voice at Manhattan School of Music in New York, Arthur joined Buz for a father-son debut concert at Carnegie Hall, where the two performed “The Pearl Fishers” duet from Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles.

dsc00803-2“We had a great time singing together,” Buz said. “We blended well together, and our voices were somewhat similar, albeit mine a little deeper.”

After leaving New York, Buz spent 12 years singing opera in Germany. But he returned to Hawaii in 2003 when he learned that his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer to care for his parents and place his father in hospice care.

That year, Buz decided to follow further in his father’s footsteps and start teaching. Until then, he had felt reluctant about pursuing voice teaching, even though his father called it a “noble art.”

“I think he was gratified that I did take up teaching, because I resisted it for a while,” Buz said.
In the last several months of Arthur’s life, he was able to see Buz take up his love of teaching.

“I think that meant a lot to him,” Buz said. “All of these things that I put into practice now as a teacher, I learned initially from him.”

The last time Arthur saw Buz sing live was at a Diamond Head Theatre production of the musical Ragtime in late 2003. He passed away in May of 2004, and Buz’s Mother died of cancer four years later.

“I don’t believe in closure. I just believe in acceptance,” Buz said. “There’s always that hole there, but you just learn to live with it. And you honor their memory.”

When he sings, Buz finds that acceptance. He continued to read the lyrics of “If I sing”:

“I never told you.
It took time ‘till I could see
that if I sing you are the music,
and you’ll always sing in me.”

Buz paused. Though his eyes began to well up, he smiled as he read the last lyric:

“Yes you’ll always live in me.”

 

Use the audio player  below to listen to a recording of the Buz and Arthur Tennent singing “O Mimi,  tu piu non torni,” Marcello and Rodolfo’s Act 4 duet from Puccini’s La Bohème.

HOT Opera Express – Hansel and Gretel Album

Enjoy these images from HOT’s Opera Express production of Hansel and Gretel at the historic Hawaii Theatre! Toi, toi, toi to our performers and the HOT Education Team for creating such a wonderful show!
Each year, Opera Express takes a condensed family-friend opera to schools and venues throughout the Hawaiian Islands

#HOTSpeaks: Teacher and GenHOT Member Introduces Youth to Opera

Lauren Williams’ involvement with opera came full circle last month when she brought her class of high school choir students to the Opera For Everyone dress rehearsal of Puccini’s La Bohème.
Williams’ first experience singing opera was in the children’s chorus of a Hawaii Opera Theatre production of La Bohème when she was 9 years old. Now 33, Williams continues to sing with the HOT volunteer chorus as an adult.
Her parents introduced her to opera, she said, but it was great teachers and mentors that helped her stick with it.
“I think when you have a teacher or mentor who can bridge the gap between being an authority figure and being a friend, that can really change students’ hearts and can shape the direction that they choose in life,” Williams said.
Along with teaching choir, Williams also teaches hula at her hālau, co-owns a local small business, and sits on the advisory board of GenHOT. The GenHOT Advisory Board is a group of young professionals dedicated to increasing the attendance of those less than 40 years old at HOT performances, furthering corporate giving and fundraising, and developing the next generation of HOT Board members.
Accomplishing those goals can sometimes be an uphill battle, Williams said.
She has experienced young people being put off by the word “opera” since she first began singing in the Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus.
“My peers would kind of look at me like, ‘Opera? What? That’s for old people!’” Williams said.
But what made her fall in love with the art form in the first place was being a part of an actual opera production, Williams said. She thinks that many other young people would also enjoy opera if they could have the behind-the-scenes experience, she said.
“I feel like the operas can turn people off sometimes because they are actually over-polished,” Williams said. “People these days want to hear the ‘unplugged’ or the ‘cut tracks.’ I wish people could see the singers mess up and people could know that opera singers catch colds sometimes. The reality of it is where the drama really is.”
Other opera companies have tried many tactics to entice young audiences, including shortening productions, choosing more modern operas, or pairing opera with beer or food trucks.
HOT has increased HOT ticket sales among young buyers in recent years by introducing GenHOT and the student subscription, along with events like HOT Tuesday and open dress rehearsals.
But perhaps some of the most important efforts to attract the next generation of opera lovers happen outside of HOT and within the families and classrooms of young people in the community.
Before watching the OFE rehearsal of La Bohème, Williams had her high school choir class act out scenes from the opera around the lily pond on the school’s grounds. She also taught them the music to a few arias so that they would be more familiar with the production.
Williams hopes that she might have the same impact on her students as her mentors had on her when she was young.
“After the students and I left Opera for Everyone, I said, ‘Hey, what did you guys think of the opera?’ And they said, ‘Please tell us we can go to another one!’” She said.