Luna Duo is Born

Sometimes when the timing is just right, new ideas will transform into brilliant projects.  I’ve been playing in this violin-viola duo for about a year now, but we were never seriously interested in taking it to the next level.  One reason is that we are living very far apart (New York and Boston), so it is somewhat difficult to get together and play.  Plus, we both have independent lives in which we are very busy with teaching, performing other gigs and concerts with various other musicians.  

But it just so happens that around this time—festivals and audition time—that we start to think more seriously about what our goals are.   We have a couple gigs coming up in the next few months along with some auditions.  We are so serious that we even thought of a name for ourselves: Luna Duo.  How did we come up with this name?  I’ve always had a fascination with astronomy and the solar system, yet not knowing much about astrology, I feel a strong connection with the moon, more so than the sun.  Some people call it, the “midnight sun” with some dark and menacing connotation with it, but to me, the moon is angelic, peaceful and bright, with many changing facets depending on how you look at it.  I feel that this name fits us as musicians very well.  Not only do we need light that shine upon us, we love to shine our own light upon the music we play.   Thus we love to play new and old music, popular and under-performed works, inundated with our own emotions and  interpretation of what the music means to us.  We hope some of you will consider attending one of our concerts as it will mean a great deal to us.  Thank you for your support and stayed tuned for more updates about Luna Duo.

We’re not in Kansas anymore…

Ahhhh… we are finally back in Boston. This past weekend was the most rewarding and humbling experience WAITIKI has ever had, and it just so happened to be in Lawrence, KS. We had the privilege and honor to perform at the 500th radio show celebration of Kansas Public Radio. Big mahalos to Darrell and Jason for organizing the event and making everything happen so smoothly and happily. Our 4-hour performance of 3 sets of quality exotica music was graciously taken in by the audience at Liberty Hall, one of the coolest venues to perform in.


Liberty Hall

We played for a large group of exotica fans–close to 500– that filled both the ground level and the balcony. They even drank the bar that served WAITIKI cocktails completely dry. I managed to have a couple sips of the Wai Niu right before I played L’ours chinois, which was a bad idea because I literally could not feel my fingers. But the audience still loved it.

Check out other videos of the new All-Star Septet band on YouTube and pictures on my flickr.

I think the tiki gods were definitely smiling down upon us that night. Highlights to remember: Meeting up with everyone at the airport and experiencing the “spillage” curse, acting out the comic book and conjuring up more ideas for future issues, walking AT LEAST 2 miles to a random house party through the mist, cheering for the All-Star Berklee beer pong team (go Abe and Jim!!), learning how to do birdcalls with Lopaka, sitting with the rest of the lefties on one side of a table and scarfing down gumbo, sneaking a candy rat into Jim’s cymbal bag, and hugging my sweety after L’ours.

Downers but still great anyways: Spillage of orgeat (poor Tim!), broken ass’s jaw, Lopaka’s flight cancellation that transformed into a miracle, early morning flights to and from Kansas …grrr!

I LOVE WAITIKI!!! Can’t wait for our next big gig ;)

Foood is goooood

Off to Kansas!

Stay tuned for stories and pictures from our trip to the Midwest. Please visit WAITIKI.COM for more information on concerts and tickets. Or if you just want a really cool comic book. Bwana-aaaaaaa!

In rehearsal