Pianist Mahani Teave will perform at the Hawaii Concert Society’s second presentation of the season at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov 8, at the University of Hawaii at Hilo Performing Arts Center.
Teave is a classical pianist from Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the only professional pianist on that island of fewer than 8,000 people.
Born in Hawaii to a Rapa Nui father and an American mother, she grew up on one of the remotest inhabited islands on the planet, an island devoid of any classical music tradition. From there, she has gone on to earn a place on the international concert stage. But rather than press on with a career of constant touring, she decided to return and establish the first music school on her home island a little over a decade ago.
As a child, Teave’s first exposure to the classical repertory came from a ballet teacher, and for years her favorite work was “The Nutcracker,” which she listened to over and over on a cassette, practicing her steps at home.
“There were no classical radio stations on the island when I was a little girl,” Teave said. “Nobody even knew about classical music, except for tidbits they might catch from some movie.”
Teave was 9 years old when the island got its first piano.
“It was very exciting. I heard that this teacher was coming to this island and she was bringing her piano, “ she said, adding that she immediately went to search for the teacher. “The next thing I know is I’m playing her piano.”
Teave wrote to the Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo, pleading with him to visit Rapa Nui. He did, and invited her to make her public debut. On his advice, Teave’s mother took her daughter to Valdivia, in the south of Chile, to study at its conservatory. She later studied music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and in Germany at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy.
Teave said she left the island with the intention of launching her career on a global stage, but something kept calling her home. So she returned to Rapa Nui and established the first music school there in 2012. It currently has over 100 students.
Teave’s 2021 CD, “Rapa Nui Odyssey” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Charts and whose popularity led this year to a three-month North American and Hawaii tour.
Teave’s Nov. 8 Hilo concert will include works by Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff, as well as ancestral and contemporary music of her native island.
Tickets — $25 general admission, $20 for those 60-plus, and $10 for students — are available at the Most Irresistible Shop, Basically Books and the UH-Hilo Performing Arts Center box office until the afternoon of the concert.
Remaining tickets will be available from 6:45 p.m. on the evening of the concert at the theater box office. Seating is unreserved. More information is available at the www.hawaiiconcertsociety.com, on the Society’s Facebook page, or by phoning (808) 959-4064.