The Hawaii Pacific University Voice Studio presents “In Her Shoes,” a concert dedicated to female composers.
Tonight, experience an evening that promises a variety of different song in different genres sung by HPU students in the Sunset Ballroom at Aloha Tower Marketplace.
After a semester of practicing, seven HPU students will present songs composed by women.
As an HPU student, anyone can sign up and experience the beauty of singing. For those who don’t feel like singing themselves but love music, the concert is an opportunity to dive into songs that are normally underutilized since all the songs performed are by female composers.
The mind behind the event is Sarah Lambert Connelly, an opera singer with Honolulu Opera Theatre and a piano and voice instructor. Once per semester, her students get the opportunity to have their stage debut at HPU and show what they have been working on.
The music will be accompanied by slideshows that showcase the inner thoughts of the singers and an insight on what goes through their head while singing.
Connelly said students get to choose from a variety of songs provided. The program will be a wild mix, between musical style “Girl in 14G” (2001), traditional Hawaiian song “Ku’u Pua Lehua” to classical selection “La Speranza al Cor Mi Dice” (1808). There will be translations provided for the songs that are not sung in English.
After monthly studio classes in front of other voice students, for some singers it will be the very first time performing on stage. Not only liberal arts majors, but other students also participate in the course.
“We have words to sing,” is how Connelly illustrates the beauty of singing as an instrument and to bring words alive through music. Therefore, it is possible to transfer the moment the composer was in while writing the song into a living and breathing space and connect with the audience emotionally.
It is important to her to help all people to get on stage and experience this moment even if they may not have grown up surrounded by classical music. HPU students will be joined by other professional singers from HOT who will perform their renditions of songs by female composers. Connelly will be on stage herself as well.
Together, they aim to give the audience the feeling of a time before the internet as people gathered around a piano to sing a song and enjoy music after dinner. Even though nowadays people bring a bigger awareness to women in the music industry it is still harder for them to be as acknowledged equally as men.
Anyone interested can attend the concert for free and provide a “loving cushion of cheerleading support” for fellow HPU students preforming on stage, Connelly said. Since the air conditioning might be cold, she added, “layers are always a good idea.”
