Seabury Hall - Maui, Hawaii
January 23, 2009The second visit on Maui was at Seabury Hall located in Makawao. Art Vento from the Maui Culture Center provided both the school visits in Maui. As soon as Jake entered the gym, the students welcomed him with roars and applauses. Jake opened with “Let’s Dance” and merely after the intro the students were screaming and cheering. Then when Jake played “Piano-forte” it sounded marvelous with the gym’s echo ringing in the silence. The students were completely mute and blown away by the beautiful piece.
Everyone especially enjoyed Jake’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the students went crazy when he finished. Later, the school’s ukulele club, which consisted of about 20 students, joined Jake up front as they all played “Europa” together. Jake also advocated music and how it is a universal language and instruments act as a translator that expresses ones feeling through sound that people can interpret and understand. Music is communicating with your heart, and since it is purely from the heart, there can be no miscommunication. With words we can interpret things the wrong way and that is how wars and strife are born.
After Jake’s “Orange World” finale, the students gave him a vast standing ovation. Jake encouraged the students to do something nice for someone and help out in the community. To finish the event, a student joined Jake as they both played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” together as a duet. Together they sounded awesome; everyone gave them a standing ovation before they even finished with the song.
As soon as the assembly ended, the students crowded around Jake for his autograph some of them even brought their ukuleles for Jake to sign. Thank you Art for coordinating this visit.