Wayfinding - 50 years of Hōkūleʻa’- a musical journey to Angel Island with Del Sol Quartet
Featuring world premieres by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Michael-Thomas Foumai, and Edward Simon
Participate in Hōkūleʻa-inspired hands-on history activities.
Del Sol Quartet invites audiences of all ages to experience the spirit of Hōkūleʻa by celebrating ancient traditions of ocean voyaging. This program centers us inside our shared Pacific - Moananuiākea - and evokes an oceanic identity, on the 50th anniversary of the Hōkūleʻa’s maiden voyage to Tahiti. After a ferry ride to Angel Island, we hear music from a new perspective with Pasifika composers Leilehua Lanzilotti and Michael-Thomas Foumai and swing on the majestic waves of “Guardian of the Oceans”, especially arranged for Del Sol by SFJazz Collective’s piano-hero Edward Simon. Peter Sculthorpe’s pulsing Australian “Earth Cry” rounds out the program. After the concert, Dr. Miki Tomita Okamoto from the educational organization Wayfinder will lead Hōkūleʻa-inspired hands-on history activities.
This event continues Del Sol’s groundbreaking Angel Island Concert series, sharing music inside the detention barracks at Angel Island Immigration Station. Long a place of suffering and dashed hopes, these barracks also stand as testimony to the irrepressible creative spirit of the Chinese detainees who carved hundreds of poems into the walls. Three times a year, Del Sol fills this acoustically superb monument with music, in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.
Michael-Thomas Foumai (b. 1987, USA): Ka Makani Paʻaki (The Salt Wind) (2025) WORLD PREMIERE
Leilehua Lanzilotti (b.1983, USA): Moananuiākea (2026) WORLD PREMIERE
Edward Simon (b.1969, Venezuela/USA) - Guardian of the Oceans (arr. string quartet, 2026) WORLD PREMIERE
Peter Schulthorpe (1929-2014, Australia) - String Quartet #12, Earth Cry (1994)