Na Leo Lani Chorus is fundraising through the Kahala Mall Very Merry Event this holiday season!
For the low price of $5.00, you can obtain a Very Merry pass, which grants you access to dozens of special discounts, in-store specials and giveaways Friday, December 10 though Sunday, December 12 at Kahala Mall.
Click here for the list of participating merchants.
Enjoy discounts on your holiday shopping and help support Na Leo Lani Chorus at the same time. 🙂
Please contact a chorus member or email naleolanichorus@gmail.com to purchase a Very Merry ticket today.
100% of your ticket purchase goes to support Na Leo Lani!
Our very own Rosie Ramiro, longtime Na Leo Lani member and chorus volunteer, was recently recognized by the AARP for her contributions to the chorus and many other causes. In addition to serving as Leads section leader and stints on the NLL Board, Rosie uses her creative talents to make costume accessories that keep us looking festive, floral, and fantastic. When the pandemic began, she turned her sewing skills to making hundreds of face masks for frontline workers. In honor of Rosie’s boundless generosity and energy, fellow chorus member Noel Eto thoughtfully nominated her for the Andrus Award, which recognizes “outstanding individuals age 50 and older who are sharing their experience, talents and skills to enrich the lives of others.”
See excerpts from Noel’s nomination, below. And for the latest on Rosie’s volunteer work, see this Star Advertiser article on the new Acopan Garden at the Manoa Heritage Center — a project close to her heart.
Rosie with her Certificate of Appreciation: “Rosie is a shining example of empowering people to choose how they live as they age.”
Nomination highlights:
“During the 2020-2021 COVID 19 pandemic lockdown, Rosie has personally sewn and donated over 1,500 face masks to Lanakila Clinic and hundreds of surgical caps, wheelchair bags and lap blankets for Kuakini Hospital. Rosie was nominated and received an award from Hawaii National Bank’s “Hometown Heroes” for her generous mask donations.
“Rosie also became a volunteer assistant to the ukulele instructor at Lanakila Senior Center, after taking the classes herself.
“Rosie has been a member of NaLeo Lani chorus (NLL), the Hawaii chapter of Sweet Adelines International (SAI), a women’s a cappella group for nearly twenty years. During that time she’s served voluntarily on the Board of Directors.
“For NLL, Rosie is the Lead section leader and the lead singer in NLL’s premier quartet, Friends (and sews costumes for them, too). Rosie prints and delivers sheet music to homebound (and not so technical) chorus members. She keeps in touch and visits with members now in care homes. She also donates face masks as prizes for games during NLL’s Zoom rehearsal sessions.
“Rosie participated in SAI’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion project which included reviewing NLL’s 50 songs of their current repertoire. She researched the history, composer and language of each song to insure that there was no trace of racism, sexism or any inadvertent negative message. This is being done worldwide by Sweet Adelines International.”
Rosie has also become an active presence with the Manoa Heritage Center. She recently gave a presentation about Filipinos in Manoa Valley for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and she recorded an oral history of her family in Manoa Valley for Malama Manoa
With interacting safely again being possible and travel resuming for many people, we are looking forward to welcoming singers from out of town. Recently, we welcomed Brooke Cholka, Team Leader for High Desert Harmony Chorus in Reno, who joined us online for our Halloween rehearsal on Zoom while she was visiting Honolulu.
Brooke and fellow tenor Kieko Matteson also met up at Kieko’s place for coffee and a great Sweet Adeline-to-Sweet Adeline chat. Lovely meeting you, Brooke! We hope to see you in Reno soon — if not in 2022, at least at competition in 2023!
Well folks, it’s October 2021 and we are still at it — spirited singing apart but together on line! In honor of Na Leo Lani’s longstanding tradition of celebrating Halloween with Krazy Kwartets at rehearsal, we dressed up in full crazy costume garb, answered Halloween riddles, and worked out with gusto with holiday-themed vocal warm-ups. See some of the fun below.
We never thought we’d still be singing online a year and half after our first, quickly assembled, Zoom rehearsal back in March 2020! Alas, even though we are all fully vaccinated and eager to resume harmonizing IN REAL LIFE, the ever-mutating virus has had other plans for us. We had a brief resumption of in-person ensemble rehearsals in July with small groups of members singing outside in the fresh air with masks on — what joy to hear chords ring again! But then the Delta variant arrived on Oahu’s shores, and in the interest of precaution and in keeping with public health regulations, we ceased those gatherings.
When safety permits, we will start singing together in-person again. We are so looking forward to that day! — but for now , we are staying safe and tuneful online — apart but still together. If you are a prospective member, or just want to check out what we do, please see our “Join Us” page for info on visiting our Zoom rehearsals, now at a new day of the week — Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m.
Here are a couple of photos from our recent August 2021 rehearsals online.
In August, we sported our high school colors and wore our hearts on our sleeves (and shirts, and shoulders) for our rehearsal themes, “High School Musical” and “Purple Hearts”
In 2020, while all of Honolulu was under pandemic lockdown orders, O’ahu’s three barbershop choruses — Na Leo Lani, the Sounds of Aloha Chorus, and Honolulu Blend Show Chorus — came together to overcome the gloom and learn a new song together for our first-ever virtual performance. It was a steep learning curve, but the results — a joyful blend of male and female voices in upbeat celebration — were well worth it. Many thanks to Adam LeFebvre of Sounds of Aloha for his extraordinary editing skills. Enjoy the performance by clicking HERE: “If There’s Anybody Here From Out of Town.”
Male and female barbershop voices in a socially distanced but heartfelt blend.
In January 2021, we hosted our first-ever Guest Night on Zoom. Guest Nights are a longstanding tradition with Na Leo Lani. In the past, we have invited friends, relatives, fellow barbershoppers from other O’ahu choruses, and prospective members to come check us out and join in the fun of singing together. In keeping with this year’s Guest Night theme, “Good Night!”, we showed up in our pajamas, sleep masks, hair curlers, and other must-have elements of a musical slumber party and had a great time dancing, singing tags, and outdoing each other explaining why OUR parts (tenor, lead, baritone, and bass) are the BEST of all. Mahalo for coming!
See below for the flyer and a screen shot of the fun.
In August 2020, Na Leo Lani celebrated its 45th anniversary with a virtual birthday bash attended by friends from around the world. Our president, Dana Taylor, put together a slideshow of photos and memorabilia from our first four and a half decades. Our vice-president, Pam Ednie, emceed a live fashion parade of some of the many elegant costumes we have performed in over the years.
In February 2020, Na Leo Lani joined with women’s choruses from around O`ahu to sing in the No Na Wahine Festival. What a joy it was to raise our voices with so many other wonderful women from the islands in the gorgeous chapel of Sacred Hearts Academy. Enjoy our performance here of “Sha-Boom,” “Will You Promise to Be True,” and “Hawaiian Lullaby.”
Na Leo Lani Chorus 