{"id":169992,"date":"2022-12-06T16:18:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T02:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=169992"},"modified":"2022-12-06T16:18:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T02:18:52","slug":"manoa-falsetto-champion-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/06\/manoa-falsetto-champion-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Falsetto champion blends Hawaiian language, business studies"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_20803\"  width=\"676\" height=\"380\"  data-origwidth=\"676\" data-origheight=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7TSLpWi5OSc?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"FOA 2022   Heua\u02bbolu Sai Dudoit   Kalama\u02bbula\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"small-text\"> Sai-Dudoit performing &ldquo;<span aria-label=\"Kalamaula\">Kalama&#699;ula<\/span>&rdquo;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A multi-talented artist who can hit the really high notes and play his own accompaniment, <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> student <strong><span aria-label=\"Heuaolu\">Heua&#699;olu<\/span> Sai-Dudoit<\/strong> is no stranger to performing. He has been singing and playing the <span aria-label=\"ukulele\">&#699;ukulele<\/span> since he was 9 years old, and was recently named the winner of the 20th Annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.festivalsofaloha.com\/richard-holsquoopilsquoi.html\">Richard <span aria-label=\"Hoopii\">Ho&#699;opi&#699;i<\/span> Leo <span aria-label=\"Kiekie\">Ki&#699;eki&#699;e<\/span> Falsetto Contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The contest provides a platform for preserving and perpetuating leo <span aria-label=\"kiekie\">ki&#699;eki&#699;e<\/span> (falsetto)&#8212;a style of music that entails singing at a vocal register higher than one\u2019s usual range. Sai-Dudoit was among five singers competing in this year\u2019s contest, which was held on Maui in September. In addition to his first place title, he also received the special Hawaiian Language and Musicality awards for his stellar performance of &ldquo;<span aria-label=\"Kalamaula\">Kalama&#699;ula<\/span>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It was a good environment for Hawaiian music,&rdquo; said Sai-Dudoit. &ldquo;We all enjoy Hawaiian music and we understand the value of it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_169974\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-169974\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/manoa-falsetto-champion-heauaolu-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Heua\u02bbolu Sai-Dudoit\" width=\"250\" height=\"350\" class=\"size-full wp-image-169974\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/manoa-falsetto-champion-heauaolu-portrait.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/manoa-falsetto-champion-heauaolu-portrait-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/manoa-falsetto-champion-heauaolu-portrait-93x130.jpg 93w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-169974\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heua\u02bbolu Sai-Dudoit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although this was his first time competing in the contest, Sai-Dudoit\u2019s specialization in falsetto singing has been many years in the making. His interest in falsetto began in fourth grade, when his substitute teacher who happened to be the granddaughter of Genoa Keawe, a prolific Hawaiian falsetto singer, introduced a Hawaiian falsetto song to the class. He continued singing and honing his craft in the years that followed, and eventually entered a broad singing competition through <a href=\"https:\/\/manamaoli.org\/about-us\/\">Mana Maoli<\/a> in 2021. This year, at the recommendation of a vocal coach with Mana Maoli, he decided to enter the falsetto contest.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There\u2019s kind of a purity, a clearness, to singing falsetto,&rdquo; said Sai-Dudoit. &ldquo;For me, singing it feels good. It\u2019s being able to express the words in the way where people take notice of it and people can enjoy it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Musical family lineage<\/h2>\n<p>Sai-Dudoit\u2019s contest piece, &ldquo;<span aria-label=\"Kalamaula\">Kalama&#699;ula<\/span>,&rdquo; is a well-known Hawaiian falsetto song that holds a special family connection. It was written by Emma Kala Dudoit&#8212;his great-great-grandmother on his late father\u2019s side. His Dudoit <span aria-label=\"ohana\">&#699;ohana<\/span> also includes ties to Horace K. Dudoit <abbr title=\"roman numeral three\">III<\/abbr>, a founding member of Grammy-nominated group <span aria-label=\"Hookena\">Ho&#699;okena<\/span>. His mother\u2019s side of the family has a musical lineage of its own&#8212;his mother is the niece of Marlene Sai, a <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award winning singer.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;A lot of people would choose a song because &lsquo;this one sounds the best,&rsquo; or &lsquo;this one is a standard,&rsquo; but with the one I picked, I have a connection to the song,&rdquo; explained Sai-Dudoit. &ldquo;I chose the song as a way to honor that side of the family&#8212;my father and my great-great-grandmother.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to rehearsing for his performance, Sai-Dudoit did diligent research in the month leading up to the contest. Since &ldquo;<span aria-label=\"Kalamaula\">Kalama&#699;ula<\/span>&rdquo; is an older song, many of the lyrics were passed down vocally over time. In order to uncover the original, complete lyrics, Sai-Dudoit carefully examined a Hawaiian language newspaper from the early 1900s, which contained one of the earliest known documentations of the song.<\/p>\n<h2>Hawaiian language meets business<\/h2>\n<p>A 2021 graduate of Ke Kula <span aria-label=\"O\">&#699;O<\/span> <span aria-label=\"Nawahiokalaniopuu\">N&#257;wah&#299;okalani&#699;&#333;pu&#699;u<\/span> immersion school on <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island, Sai-Dudoit is now a second-year student majoring in Hawaiian language at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kawaihuelani.org\/\">Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language<\/a> in <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/hshk\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaiinuiakea\">Â鶹´«Ã½nui&#257;kea<\/span> School of Hawaiian Knowledge<\/a>. Alongside his Hawaiian language studies, he is also taking courses at the <a href=\"https:\/\/shidler.hawaii.edu\">Shidler College of Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In blending Hawaiian language and business, Sai-Dudoit hopes to reinstitute Hawaiian language making use of skills gained through the study of business. Specifically, he is interested in the music industry, and his business studies give him the entrepreneurial background to help him succeed in that enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Hawaiian language&#8230;it&#8217;s fun, it\u2019s interesting, it\u2019s thought-provoking and I\u2019m reintroducing the language and its qualities into business&#8212;into a domain where it had once flourished,&rdquo; said Sai-Dudoit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;By <em>Alisha Churma<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa student <span aria-label=\"Heuaolu\">Heua&#699;olu<\/span> Sai-Dudoit was named the winner of the 20th Annual Richard <span aria-label=\"Hoopii\">Ho&#699;opi&#699;i<\/span> Leo <span aria-label=\"Kiekie\">Ki&#699;eki&#699;e<\/span> Falsetto Contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[498,1057,551,411,1466,1465,133,146,660,9,56],"class_list":["post-169992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-business","tag-hawaiian-language","tag-hawaiinuiakea-school-of-hawaiian-knowledge","tag-kawaihuelani-center-for-hawaiian-language","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-manoa-native-hawaiian-place-of-learning","tag-music","tag-shidler-college-of-business","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169992"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170120,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169992\/revisions\/170120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}