Nick Yee’s passion for music developed at an early age, as he collected jazz and rock records pulled from dusty locations while growing up in both Southern California and Honolulu. In college he started DJing around Honolulu, playing Jazz and Bossa Nova sets at various lounges and clubs under the name dj mr.nick. He started to incorporate Downtempo, House and Breaks into his sets as his popularity grew, eventually getting DJ residences at different Chinatown locations. To this day, he is a fixture in the Honolulu underground club scene, where his live sets are famous for being able to link musical and cultural boundaries, starting mellow and building the audience into a frenzy while steering free of mainstream clichés.
Maestro Andrew Grams is in Hawaiʻi to lead the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra in the 2025 Sheraton Summer Festival Grand Finale Weekend. On Friday, Olgar Kern performs Beethoven, and on Sunday, the orchestra joins the final stage of the Keʻalohi International Piano Competition. Unsure which concerti the finalists will choose, Grams brought multiple scores. With his experience having conducted each piano concerto, he'll help create the best orchestral performance for the each soloist.
When Olga Kern won the Gold Medal prize of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, she was a new mother and hardly slept. Now on the piano faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and the Artistic Director and President of the Olga Kern International Piano Competition, Kern joins Classical Pacific host Sharene Taba in a conversation about Beethoven piano concerti, piano competitions and supporting young artists. Olga Kern is in Honolulu for the Grand Finale Weekend of Hawai`i Symphony Orchestraʻs Sheraton Summer Festival 2025.