Honolulu Chamber Music Series presents
Iestyn Davies, countertenor
Oliver Wass, harpist
Thursday, October 15, 2026
7:30PM
UH Mānoa Orvis Auditorium

From the opera stage to more intimate concert engagements, the Grammy award-winning Davies is renowned worldwide for his luminous voice and expressive artistry. Wass is the only harpist to win the Gold Medal – the Guildhall School of Music’s most prestigious prize. A virtuoso celebrated for his versatility of playing on both modern and early harps. Together, they create a rare and enchanting musical partnership. Their performance will feature songs spanning many centuries, from Monteverdi and Purcell to Ravel and Britten.

Imaginary Homelands: The Concert
UHM Orvis Auditorium
Saturday, November 7, 2026
7:30 p.m.

In his essay, “Imaginary Homelands,” Salman Rushdie describes our remembrances of homelands as like a broken mirror, with some of its fragments lost forever. Revisiting the cultural past, he writes, is more about memory and forgetting than recreating precisely what once was. Visited by ancestors from their Asian heritage and guided by traditions from distant, imagined, but vivid and personally inspiring pasts, these artists live and work in the multicultural environment of Hawai‘i, sharing a common vision of how art can respond to the challenges and possibilities posed by our urgent need for a more inclusive and interdependent world.

In 2019, Yukie Shiroma invited Kenny Endo and Norman Kaneshiro on a journey to explore the intersections of Japanese taiko, Okinawan sanshin, Okinawan and modern dance to create new music and choreography to tell contemporary stories. Musicians Derek Fujio, Brandon Ing and Jesse Shiroma soon joined the ensemble, and the Imaginary Homelands Band was formed. Collaborating with Shiroma and eight dancers, their collaborations were presented at Palikū Theatre on February 2022, Leeward Theatre in April 2024, and UH Hilo Performing Arts Center in October 2024. Without the dancers this time, the musicians return to the stage to present selections from recent shows and some new solos.

Imaginary Homelands: The Concert is presented by the University of Hawai‘i Outreach College, Monkey Waterfall, and private donors. Additional supporters include the University of Hawai‘i’s Department of Music.

The Artists:
Kenny Endo was the first non-Japanese national to be honored with a natori, a
professional stage name, in the field of Japanese classical drumming. Born in Los Angeles, he received his BA at UCLA and MA at UH Mānoa. He is currently Artistic Director of the Taiko Center of the Pacific and tours extensively, presenting his innovative cross-cultural musical collaborations throughout the U.S. and internationally. In 2022, he was recognized as a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i and a United States Artist Fellow.

Norman Kaneshiro, co-founder and the musical director of Ukwanshin Kabudan, an Okinawan performing arts organization, is a grand master of Okinawan music, Nomura Ryu Ongaku Kyo Kai. He has a BA in Ethnic Studies and is now working on an MA in Applied Cultural Anthropology at UHM. Since 2002 has been an instructor of Okinawan music in the Department of Music and in 2009 he was designated as a cultural preservationist of Okinawan classical music by the Okinawan Prefecture Government.

Derek Fujio is the Music Department Chair and Orchestra teacher at Kaimuki Middle School. He joined the faculty in 2008 after graduating with a BA degree in Music from Yale University. In 2018 he received a MA in Music Education from UHM. A lifelong student of sanshin under Norman Kaneshiro and koto under Jane Kaneshiro, he is currently the senior master instructor and president of the Okinawan koto organization, Ryukyu Sokyoku Koyokai Hawaii.

Brandon Ufugusuku Ing is a fourth-generation Okinawan born and raised in Kāneʻohe. He has spent many years practicing both guitar and sanshin in a wide range of musical styles, including traditional Okinawan music. He devotes much of his time and energy contributing to the revitalization of Uchināguchi, the indigenous language of Okinawa as well as composing songs in the language. Currently an elementary school teacher on O’ahu, Brandon is enrolled in the Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization doctoral program at Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani at the University of Hawai’i Hilo.

Originally from Hilo, Jesse Shiroma, uses music to explore his heritage as half-Ryukyuan and half-European growing up in the islands. His experience as a professional accordionist span over a decade which he now excitedly brings to Orvis Auditorium. When not performing, he is an archivist at the Hawai’i State Archives helping to develop, digitize, and share one of the largest repositories of early Hawaiian music with the world.

Honolulu Chamber Music Series presents
American String Quartet
with Clarinetist Stefan Schilling
Friday, February 5, 2027
7:30PM
UH Mānoa Orvis Auditorium

Internationally recognized as one of the world’s finest quartets, the American String Quartet has spent the last five decades honing the luxurious sound for which it is famous. The group’s presentations of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Bartók, and Mozart have won widespread critical acclaim. Stefan Schilling was principal clarinetist at the Staatstheater Darmstadt before he took the same position in the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in 1993. An avid chamber musician, he performs with musicians such as Lars Vogt, Mitsuko Uchida, and the Leipziger Streichquartett.