Mahani Teave, a classical pianist from Rapa Nui, will make her debut at the MACC on Friday. She will play classical works by well-known composers as well as traditional Rapa Nui pieces. The only professional classical musician on her island, Teave helped found the Rapa Nui School of Music and the Arts, built from thousands of recycled materials and powered by solar. PILAR CASTRO photo
Believing in the healing power of music, acclaimed Rapa Nui classical pianist Mahani Teave, who will make her Maui debut on Friday, has performed in hospitals and prisons and established a music school for children on her island.
“I think it is so special what music can do,” Teave explained. “It’s like a prism, where it has so many angles. For example, what happens with children? Through music, they strengthen their whole inner self. They find an emotional outlet. They become more tolerant to frustration. They realize how they can achieve anything through perseverance, through hard work.
“There are tools that are invaluable, especially in a society where we have alcohol problems, and drugs are coming into the island, and there’s domestic violence, very complicated situations in some homes, and a child with an instrument always finds a transformation.”
Praised for her “magnificent artistry” by the BBC Music Magazine, and “genuine eloquence” by Gramophone, Teave has performed in concert halls around the world and also in impoverished environments which have never experienced a classical concert.
“I played in some slums where I remember in a woman’s camp, this woman came to me, and she was crying and crying,” Teave recalled, “and just saying how important it had been for her that we had gone with music for them, for them to feel like being a human being again. Instead of feeling like the trash of society. It meant so much to them.
“In slums it has happened several times that before I play, the organizers say, ‘what are you going to play?’ I say, I’m going to play some Bach, and Chopin, and Beethoven. And they’re like, ‘no, you have to play music that is more well-known, because the people have never been in a concert.’ I just sort of listen and just tell them, let me just play what I have brought for them. And I found the most respectful audience, with silence, absolute silence. With such respect, listening to Bach, Beethoven, Chopin. The places where they come from, there’s probably a lot of violence, there’s a lot of hunger, lack, cold. For a moment during the concert, they could forget about all those things, and just have a moment of listening, of just connecting to their inner self without having to worry about anything. It’s really powerful.”
Teave was 9 years old when Rapa Nui, which is located more than 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile, got its first piano.
“I always loved music,” she said. “Everybody’s very musical, everybody is artistic in a way. It’s a part of the culture in Rapa Nui. Everybody somehow is an artist, or a musician, or a sculptor, or draws beautifully. I love Rapa Nui music, and when the first piano came to the island I was really crazy, anxious to be able to learn. I had the chance to learn classical piano, and then to pursue it in Chile, and later in the United States and in Germany. It’s absolutely wonderful music.”
For her recital at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, she will play works by Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff, along with two traditional Rapa Nui pieces, arranged by José Miguel Tobar and Alejandro Arevalo.
“The first one is an arrangement by José Miguel Tobar, who made an arrangement of one of our most important and most powerful ancestral songs,” she explained. “It’s very lovely. The second one is inspired by a couple of ancestral chants, but it has a lot of original material from Alejandro Arevalo. He’s a teacher at our music school. One of the ancestral chants is about the rain. The wise people, the priests in times of drought, would sing to the rain, so that it would bless us with water. And the second one tells the story of our king, Hotu Matu’a, when he left Hiva, with the people. There was this natural catastrophe happening to the land, it was sinking. Hau Maka, the wise man, had this dream and he traveled in his dream to Rapa Nui. He came back and told Hotu Matu’a that there was this land where the people could go to. So they sailed to Rapa Nui. This king was very clever and very beloved.”
The only professional classical musician on her island, Teave helped found the Rapa Nui School of Music and the Arts, built from 2,500 recycled tires and 60,000 recycled cans and bottles, fueled by solar power, with tanks to collect rainwater and a garden to provide food.
“This has been a very special project to my heart and to the hearts of those who have been dedicated in the last 10 years to this,” Teave said. “We really dedicated our life to make this happen. It’s an earth ship, built with seven years of garbage. We wanted to contribute somewhat to the environment. In a way, it’s completely self-sustainable, and we are really trying to do our part, considering this critical moment that we are living in. And it has been really difficult, especially sustaining it financially, because the first eight years there were completely free lessons.”
Arriving on Maui a couple of months after the devastating fires, Teave hopes her concert can provide some sense of uplift.
“It’s an uplifting experience. It gives somehow hope. It’s terrible all the loss that has happened and the suffering, then to have this moment, to be able to just sit and receive this as a gift. I feel honored to be able to go and play there. I’m very grateful for that,” Teave said.
Teave performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the MACC’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $15, $35 and $50, plus applicable fees, available online at mauiarts.org.
Mahani Teave, a classical pianist from Rapa Nui, will make her debut at the MACC on Friday. She will play classical works by well-known composers as well as traditional Rapa Nui pieces. The only professional classical musician on her island, Teave helped found the Rapa Nui School of Music and the Arts, built from thousands of recycled materials and powered by solar. PILAR CASTRO photoToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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