INTERVIEW: Taimane honors the ukulele’s history while expanding its reach
Photo: Taimane will perform at New York City’s Sony Hall and sing songs from her latest recording effort, Elemental. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by press rep with permission.
Celebrated ukulele player Taimane is comfortable in many different genres. She can play a classically-infused composition on her instrument of choice, while the next minute she can break into a famous Led Zeppelin song. As a performer she has the uncanny ability to simultaneously honor the tradition of the ukulele while expanding its reach for a 21st-century audience.
Taimane will bring her instrumental dominance to New York City’s Sony Hall Thursday, Jan. 9. For that special concert, she will be getting used to the cold temperatures in the Big Apple, and the crowd will be getting used to the full-on spectacle of a Taimane performance.
“I can definitely expect the winter,” Taimane said with a laugh in a recent phone interview. “That is definitely something that I am gearing up for. I love New York. I was just there in November. I love the energy. I saw pictures of the place and its very magical, mythical feel, which I think will work well with my type of music, which is all about magic and the elements. … I’m going to make the experience for the audience a magical experience.”
The special creative elements that she will be adding to the show include a Polynesian dancer who will perform several traditional routines and a modern contemporary dancer from Los Angeles. Rounding out the invited guests on stage will be an aerialist who will literally heighten the energy.
“So it’s going to be more than just music,” she said. “It’s going to be the full experience of bringing that visual content to help convey the music’s energy, and I think the lighting there is beautiful. And the overall ambiance of the place is really going to tie in really well with my music, and the dancers are just going to add that extra oomph.”
Taimane, who released Elemental in 2018, has been playing the ukulele — a small, four-stringed guitar — since she was only 5 years old. Her father bought her the instrument because almost every house in Hawaii had one, she said. After receiving the “uke,” she started playing in front of the mirror and fashioned herself the next ukulele rockstar.
“He decided to put me in some ukulele lessons, and from then on, my teachers would take me out to perform at a coffee shop,” Taimane remembers. “I started experiencing playing in front of an audience, and from then on I’ve been playing ukulele for 25 years now. I loved it. I didn’t really get stage fright when I was that young. I’ve always loved being on stage. I like to say that I’m more comfortable on stage than off stage because I really like to express myself through dance and through the ukulele rather than using words. I let the music speak for me.”
Growing up, she had many influential uke mentors. It turns out that living and learning in Hawaii was fortuitous for Taimane. The islands live and breathe this characteristic instrument, and she had access to some of the greats in the Hawaiian music industry.
“One of the best ukulele players, his name is Jake Shimabukuro, he’s kind of the king in my eyes of the ukulele, and he was one of my teachers,” Taimane said. “His younger brother, who is just as good, was one of my teachers, and each teacher taught a different type of style as well. So I kind of was exposed to different types of ukulele, from traditional Hawaiian all the way to flamenco, which is kind of where I found my passion.”
Although most people think of traditional Hawaiian music when they consider the ukulele instrument, Taimane likes to branch out and get creative with her musical output.
“It’s really morphing and changing, and it can play any type of music,” she said of the stringed instrument. “So I’m just learning and exploring that. I love classical music. I love metal music, and the ukulele is just the way for me to express myself with those types of genres that I enjoy listening to.”
That said, she never leaves her roots behind.
“I’ve played all over the world, and whenever I say I’m from Hawaii, people automatically have that smile and think of the warm island of Hawaii, and I do try and convey that through my music and through dance,” she said. “I am bringing that Polynesian dancer because I do want people to feel the culture of the island, and that’s very important. So I’ll be having him, and then I do also have a couple songs where I sing in Hawaiian. I have a couple Hawaiian songs that I’ve added or created and twisted into my own, and then I also have incorporated the haka, which is from New Zealand. And I am incorporating a Tahitian song — I don’t know if I’m going to play it this time — but I’m adding traditional songs from the islands into my music to help people to feel the culture of not just Hawaii but Polynesia overall.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Taimane will play Thursday, Jan. 9 at Sony Hall in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
