© 2025 Hawaiʻi Public Radio

Donate

Play Live Radio

Next Up:

0:00

0:00

0:00 0:00

Available On Air Stations

The House has voted to eliminate previously approved funding to public media. Here's what happens next, and how you can help protect HPR and all public media.

Classical Music Conversations

Happy Force of July: Michael-Thomas Foumai on Evening Concert

Hawaiʻi Public Radio | By Craig DeSilva

Published July 16, 2024 at 1:54 PM HST

Crag DeSilva (left) and Michael-Thomas Foumai (right) in the HPR-2 studio.

Happy Force of July!

Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra’s artist in residence Michael-Thomas Foumai joins Evening Concert host Craig DeSilva to talk about HSO’s summer concert series. HSO’s Sheraton Starlight Festival starts with The Music of Star Wars on July 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Waikiki Shell.

This classical music conversation aired on July 16. Evening concert airs weeknights, 6 to 8 p.m. on HPR-2.

Classical Music Conversations

Craig DeSilva

Craig DeSilva is glad to be playing recorded music on the air instead of playing for a live audience on stage as did when he studied piano. He began piano lessons when he was a child and continued piano studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (where he majored in broadcast journalism and minored in music) under the late Peter Coraggio.

See stories by Craig DeSilva

More from Hawai‘i Public Radio

Classical Music Conversations

Tuesday Student Takeover: Mani Kovacich

Sharene Keliʻipunilei Lum Taba

Mani Kovacich is a percussionist and a jazz drummer. The Kalani High School Junior studies Brazilian drumming, plays in the both YSI and Jazz I in the Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony Orchestra organization, and finds the balance easily because he prioritizes learning and improving. This summer, we can hear Kovacich at jazz jam sessions with Noel Okimotoʻs Ohana Jazz, or reading the Hawai`i Public Radio call letters when heʻs helping at HPR2.@ohanajazz
Classical Music Conversations

Keola Beamer on Classical Pacific

Sharene Keliʻipunilei Lum Taba

Music has always been a part of slack key guitarist and composer Keola Beamer's life. This weekend, Beamer, wife Moanalani Beamer and Jeff Peterson perform music from his over 50 year career. The 'Ohe Hano Ihu, string arrangements, and musical friends and family are part of this conversation between the studios of Classical Pacific, and the living room of Keola Beamer.