Sai-Dudoit accomplishing “Kalamaʻula”
A multi-talented artist who can strike the actually significant notes and perform his personal accompaniment, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa student Heuaʻolu Sai-Dudoit is no stranger to executing. He has been singing and enjoying the ʻukulele given that he was 9 many years old, and was just lately named the winner of the 20th Once-a-year Richard Hoʻopiʻi Leo Kiʻekiʻe Falsetto Contest.
The contest presents a system for preserving and perpetuating leo kiʻekiʻe (falsetto)—a type of songs that involves singing at a vocal sign up bigger than one’s common vary. Sai-Dudoit was amongst five singers competing in this year’s contest, which was held on Maui in September. In addition to his initial spot title, he also been given the particular Hawaiian Language and Musicality awards for his stellar performance of “Kalamaʻula.”
“It was a excellent natural environment for Hawaiian audio,” mentioned Sai-Dudoit. “We all love Hawaiian songs and we understand the worth of it.”
Heuaʻolu Sai-Dudoit
Even though this was his 1st time competing in the contest, Sai-Dudoit’s specialization in falsetto singing has been several a long time in the making. His desire in falsetto began in fourth grade, when his substitute instructor who happened to be the granddaughter of Genoa Keawe, a prolific Hawaiian falsetto singer, launched a Hawaiian falsetto tune to the class. He ongoing singing and honing his craft in the years that adopted, and finally entered a broad singing competition through Mana Maoli in 2021. This year, at the suggestion of a vocal mentor with Mana Maoli, he resolved to enter the falsetto contest.
“There’s type of a purity, a clearness, to singing falsetto,” said Sai-Dudoit. “For me, singing it feels great. It’s remaining capable to convey the text in the way the place persons just take see of it and folks can love it.”
Musical relatives lineage
Sai-Dudoit’s contest piece, “Kalamaʻula,” is a perfectly-recognized Hawaiian falsetto song that holds a distinctive household relationship. It was created by Emma Kala Dudoit—his fantastic-fantastic-grandmother on his late father’s facet. His Dudoit ʻohana also includes ties to Horace K. Dudoit III, a founding member of Grammy-nominated group Hoʻokena. His mother’s facet of the loved ones has a musical lineage of its own—his mother is the niece of Marlene Sai, a Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Accomplishment Award profitable singer.
“A whole lot of persons would decide on a tune simply because ‘this one particular appears the best,’ or ‘this 1 is a conventional,’ but with the one I picked, I have a relationship to the music,” discussed Sai-Dudoit. “I chose the track as a way to honor that facet of the family—my father and my good-wonderful-grandmother.”
In addition to rehearsing for his functionality, Sai-Dudoit did diligent investigate in the month top up to the contest. Due to the fact “Kalamaʻula” is an more mature tune, quite a few of the lyrics were being handed down vocally above time. In buy to uncover the unique, entire lyrics, Sai-Dudoit very carefully examined a Hawaiian language newspaper from the early 1900s, which contained a person of the earliest acknowledged documentations of the song.
Hawaiian language meets small business
A 2021 graduate of Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu immersion faculty on Hawaiʻi Island, Sai-Dudoit is now a second-yr pupil majoring in Hawaiian language at the Kawaihuelani Heart for Hawaiian Language in UH Mānoa’s Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Expertise. Alongside his Hawaiian language reports, he is also getting programs at the Shidler School of Organization.
In blending Hawaiian language and enterprise, Sai-Dudoit hopes to reinstitute Hawaiian language building use of techniques obtained by way of the review of small business. Particularly, he is intrigued in the tunes industry, and his organization reports give him the entrepreneurial background to enable him triumph in that company.
“Hawaiian language…it’s fun, it’s appealing, it’s imagined-provoking and I’m reintroducing the language and its features into business—into a area wherever it experienced when flourished,” stated Sai-Dudoit.
—By Alisha Churma
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