Music & Dance
Kimo Hussey
Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawai'ian Ukulele
The ukulele, developed in the late 1800s, was based on the small, guitar-like machete brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese and Spanish immigrants of Macaronesia. With support of and promotion by Hawaiian King David Kalakaua, the popularity of the ukulele or uke grew throughout the islands. The name ukulele roughly translates to "jumping flea," a description of the manner in which the fingers move on the instrument. Hawai'i's last monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, claimed that the name means “the gift that came here”, from the Hawaiian words uku (gift or reward) and lele (to come).
According to ukulele musician Kimo Hussey, “in Hawai'i, the ukulele is in every single house — like furniture.” Kimo says that his love of the ukulele has come primarily from the love of music, and that his playing of the uke was natural considering how common the instruments are in Hawai'i.
Born and raised in Honolulu, Hussey began to play the ukulele at the age of five, with encouragement and lessons from his uncle Richard. He also took up piano and guitar and, while in junior high school, began teaching fellow students to play the ukulele. In high school, Kimo said his music teacher had "such a strong influence on me, I ended up going to the same college he went to in order to study choral conducting with the same professor he had."
In addition to being considered one of Hawai’i’s foremost ukulele players, Kimo is also one of its biggest ambassadors. He holds ten to sixteen ukulele workshops every year on the United States mainland alone and many more in the islands. He is a founder and the Executive Director of the Pacific Music Foundation, an organization created to facilitate music that soothes, and is a member of the group Ho'omalie, which plays nahenahe-style music. Kimo also collaborated on a compilation of Hawai’ian songs, He Mele Aloha, intended to encourage the tradition of kanikapila (to play music together).
Links
http://www.kimohussey.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukulele
http://www.myspace.com/hoomalie
http://www.pmfhawaii.com/
http://winecountryukefest.com/workshops-2010/workshop-instructors/kimo-hussey/
http://liveukulele.com/interviews/interview-with-kimo-hussey/
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