We had a special treat at this week’s rehearsal — a coaching session with Region 12 visual coach Pamela Johnson! In addition to waving colorful ribbons in time with the beat for warmups, we sported paréos and inflatables in rainbow colors in keeping with this week’s “beaches” theme.
Thank you for the fun and inspiring session, Pamela!
What a blast we had on July 8 performing the two songs we learned for our summer program, as well as many other favorites from the Na Leo Lani repertoire. Making it even more special was a supportive turnout from sister choruses Honolulu Blend Show Chorus, Mission Valley Chorus (California), and Velvet Hills Chorus (Colorado).
After our performance, members of the audience and Na Leo Lani singers came up to participate in our first ever open mic event. It was a great afternoon of singing all around.
Many thanks to our summer program participants Summer, Marlene, Carolyn, and Donna — we hope you will continue singing with us! — and of course to all our chorus members and their families who made the event possible. Thanks most of all to Chris, our Director, for introducing these challenging but fun new songs. As she noted, they are still very much works in progress (hence our holding our sheet music in the video clip), but we covered a lot of ground in just six weeks and look forward to perfecting them further.
Enjoy the pics and video clips from the performance and open mic event below.
We had a great time going holo holo this week to sing for the residents of Pohai Nani in Kaneohe. The theme of our show was the sights and sounds of the Windward side, explored through songs like ‘Ūlili E and Hawaiian Lullaby. Enjoy pics and a video clip from our performance below.
In preparation for an upcoming singalong, members of the chorus tuned up their ‘ukuleles on Wednesday and strummed the ever-popular folk favorite, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The song originated as an African-American spiritual, so it was a timely choice to honor this week’s Juneteenth holiday.
Enjoy a couple of brief clips and a pic from Wednesday’s rehearsal below.
At this past week’s rehearsal, we celebrated flag day, waving or wearing the flags of our foremothers and our various countries and regions of ancestry. After a solid stretch working on our two new Summer Program songs, we circled up and had some fun with an old favorite, “Hawaiian Lullaby.” See a snippet here.
Na Leo Lani had a special treat this weekend courtesy of Sweet Adelines International: a free video coaching session with Master Director Lea Baker of Endeavor Harmony (Sydney, Australia).
Setting up a two-way call with sufficient audio and video across a 20-hour time difference was beyond our chorus’s skill set, even with post-pandemic fluency in platforms like Zoom and Google Meets. Enter Jeff LeFebvre of Sounds of Aloha chorus, who generously volunteered his video-connectivity know-how and supplied his equipment, to boot. Jeff stayed with us the whole afternoon to fix any glitches that arose. We could not have done it without him. Thank you!!! 🙏🏽 🙏🏽🙏🏽
A huge mahalo as well to NLL member Suzanne, who provided the perfect space for our coaching session with a huge screen, steady wifi, tiered seating, and even fresh-popped popcorn for a post-coaching snack!
Thanks most of all to our director, Chris, for tenaciously following through on this coaching opportunity, to SAI’s Education Department for underwriting it, and to Lea Baker for her amazing ear and helpful insights. Lea put us all through our paces, even the baris and tenors, who usually fly under the radar as long as we warble our “doo doo dooooos” at the right time. 😉 We learned a ton in two hours and had fun doing it.
Another fun night of rehearsal with ensemble -style sectionals and a debut of a new tune by Pure Nerves quartet. The theme was “Goth Night,” which made for a lot of folks in black and some heavy eyeliner. 😉
Enjoy the video snippets and pic below.
Last week’s rehearsal was filled with fast-paced musical antics and opportunities to show off our chops in impromptu quartets as we worked on our songs of the moment. Share the fun in the clips below.
Nothing like a little competition to bring out the vamp in all of us! At this week’s rehearsal, we divided into two ensembles and sang to (at?) each other from across the room.
Group 1 had a blast hamming it up, as you can see in the clip below.
Enjoy this short clip on Instagram of Na Leo Lani singing one of our favorites — “That’s What Friends Are For” — what better way to express how we feel about our chorus connections?
Na Leo Lani Chorus 