Gary Leavitt, Maui Choral Arts Group leader & theatre “fixture” leaving Maui

[Music] oh hi everyone good morning uh i’m jason schwartz your host here at the maui neutral zone it’s anything but neutral i am here with a very very special guest uh gary Leavitt has been here on maui how many years you’ve been here gary bunch 20 years 20 years and some of you know him as an extraordinary musical talent some know him as a conductor of musical talent i think i’m gonna let gary kind of give you an update gary when you got here did you come here for music or you came here for other

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reasons no i came here for business for work um i was working for a large insurance company at the time and uh i had been speaking with the local agent here on maui and um it just kind of bubbled up that he was going to retire and ask if i wanted to take over his agency here on maui and so i did and that’s what got me here wow but you know when i think of you i didn’t even think of that stuff because when i heard your name i heard from my partner arielle you have to join this chorus the guy

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that’s leading it he is so much fun we don’t know if he’s a stand-up comedian or a musician or you made it so much fun you were uh how did you involve yourself to hear music what i guess you have a background in music you went in yes uh i went to the new england conservatory of music in boston for college and i was fortunate enough to sing all over the world and perform all over the world um a couple different places in europe and all over the united states at lincoln center and at carnegie hall and places like that kind

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of stuff so it was very it’s always been my my hobby slash passion on the side and then always had a day job to pay the bills and so when i got here of course i wanted to get involved in the music scene here when i first moved here it really wasn’t actually possible for a while because my work schedule at the time prohibited me from having anything regular that i could do because i was on different rotating shifts all the time but eventually that settled down and as soon as it did i joined what was then the

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maui symphony chorus under cilia canty and i sang with that group for a long time and uh eventually worked my way into a border position there and working as the assistant conductor and then we went through a restructuring at that time and turned out the organization needed a new director and so they said okay i’ll do it sure why not and very fortunate when i took over we had 35 people in the chorus and now we’re at over 100. you know i i think that you were very generous because i think if you can

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breathe and kind of almost hold the tune you were impossible and uh it grew and grew and i gotta tell you i i when i first came ariel said you have to come down and i said well i’ll come and watch but i’m really not a choir coral kind i’m more like a solo singer but you made it so much fun i said you know this is like going to a show every time um did you ever lead a group like this before you were terrific doing it yeah i’ve i’ve worked in several uh other uh associate director positions

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in conducting positions before um with uh small groups even when i was still in the navy i directed a brass ensemble when i was in the navy um i’ve directed several other small choruses and of course church choirs throughout my career and and uh then this this came up wonderful opportunity came up here and uh i think that uh people on maui or when i they think again i don’t want to kind of get funny about it but you have brought music into the heart of people that so much love it and didn’t think they

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had any way to be able to enjoy it and anything like this you have really made it alive and uh the the stuff that you choose how did you choose your music just inspiration part of its inspiration an awful lot of perspiration um you know anyone who’s a conductor will tell you that you know we’re very weird because we’re always listening to christmas music in february because we have to think that far ahead so we can know where we’re going down the road but when i the way i choose music is i

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try to pick a balanced program that will appear to the broadest spectrum of people so that goes for the singers as well as the audience so i’ll try to have a couple of pieces that are very interesting that will stretch people their their minds a little bit basically i’ll look for a familiar tune that they know that’s done in a very unusual way so try to find something that’s a new version of something that they already will recognize and then i’ll always pick a few standards that they’ll

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they will recognize and and then just try to push them along a little bit here and there so i try to keep the whole thing very balanced as far as genre and difficulty so that nobody feels left behind but everybody should feel a little challenged so it tries to keep it balanced i don’t want people coming in who can’t read music and go there’s no way i can learn this so between rehearsal tracks and and other tools that we put together for people it’s always been my goal to make it accessible for everybody as long

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as they can carry a tune in a bucket yeah and i guess now we were a lot of us were hoping to have a show but suddenly coveted 19 arrived on the scene and kind of stopped everything yeah um any plans you know what the the i guess that it’s hard to just kind of figure out when you’re going to open up and be able to do another performance we really have no way of knowing that um because the board is very firmly committed to not putting anyone in any sort of danger or risk yeah and so as i understand it the

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latest discussions were uh we would not entertain rehearsing again or performing again until we had a vaccine in place and anybody who wanted to sing with us would have to show proof of vaccination right right yeah because it’s just a safety thing all it takes is one person to get sick because let’s face it the majority of our members are a little bit older and may have underlying health conditions they are the definition of the high risk group and singing is the definition of high-risk activity for kobe

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so with those two together until it’s as safe as we can make it there’s no way we’re coming back yeah well and now you’re off to the big apple back to new york from whence i came and once i came also that’s uh are you excited to be going back to new york um very very excited um you know uh it’s been a wonderful stay here on maui uh but i think now for where i am in my career it’s time for me to to move back to the big city and uh throw my feet back into some other organizations there that i used to

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sing with and and perform with and uh and plus my day job i got a wonderful opportunity to which brought me back there in the first place so uh all the all the signs are aligned that it’s time to move back well what kind of work are you going to be doing i’m just curious well i’ll still be working for the federal government just for a different agency and i’ll be basically a strategic planner for them so i’ll be working with a team of about eight people and we’ll be doing lots of

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large infrastructure projects on an international schedule scale wow what a great thing for you yeah a lot of fun well i hope that you’ll come back here and visit us and i i don’t know how that would work but i bet you could be a guest conductor here anytime i wouldn’t say no i wouldn’t say no i would love it uh can you give us a kind of a your musical history here on maui i i know you probably can pull up all kinds of names there are all kinds of people and all kinds of everywhere i go and i say the

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word gary levithy go oh gary he’s leaving us um you’ve been performing here as well as i know that you were the you were the chief pirate in pirates of penzance right yes yes if you want to go back to when i first got here um i didn’t do community theater for a long time again because of the scheduling issues uh so i started off with the maui symphony chorus and then i morphed into what became maui choral arts after the symphony disbanded and then my first community theater experience on maui

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was actually les mis with mapa the first of the big shows that they did and so i did les miz uh and i was just a chorus member in there i had a few little featured parts in there where i had a couple of lines here and there but i was i’ll remember the ensemble had a wonderful time doing that show i also understudied for javier jerry itings part um just as a backup and it was fun to learn all that music which is really exciting after les mis i immediately went into uh rehearsals for uh fiddler on the roof

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where i was cast as tevye the lead role for fiddler which was of course my favorite dearest role to do ever anywhere at the same time i was working down in pro arts in kihei at the theater down there and i did a show called bermuda avenue triangle uh and then i followed that up with the uh putnam county spelling bee which i did right after that which is a fun show where i played the vice principal and i got to ad-lib a whole bunch of stuff and just be silly and stupid which is what i’m really good at so i just was

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silly and stupid and uh at that time that’s when i kind of got pulled into maui choral arts and started rebuilding that and then i stayed with the map of summer shows and after that first show i then got recruited to be the musical director for all of their following shows so i was the music director for miss saigon and then the following year i was the music director for um hunchback of notre dame and into the woods and i’m missing one oh jacqueline hyde and jacqueline hyde so those those are all the big shows i

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music directed for those and then at the same time i was very fortunate that i was able to guest conduct with the bowie pops because we did a joint concert with them between maui coral arts and maui pops so i’ve been on that podium and i’ve been a featured soloist with the maui chamber orchestra before and sung in that chorus as well so i’ve been i’ve been around here and there done a few things and then our two concerts a year without equal arts so keeps me keeps me busy and keeps me off the

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streets and out of trouble but you get in trouble anyway i know i tried well you know i um i can’t imagine what it’s going to be like here without you i mean you had said you have such a great presence here and you’ve you’ve really made the lives of so many people you know more joyous by by who you are and what you do you’ve been really a blessing to maui i’m super happy that’s all you can ask for that’s all you can ask for in life is to try to bring a little light to

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someone else’s life that’s that’s what it’s all about if i can spark an interest in music and in singing uh to anyone then it’s it’s you know job well done i’m happy so it’s a good thing have you um any thoughts on um what you see maui’s future and music gonna be have you kind of mapped out anything for the people here on choral arts i i know you’re so involved i keep thinking i can’t imagine you gone and i really mean that i mean you set the pace and the tone you’re

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going to be uh hard to replace yeah and it’s you know it’s it’s uh it’s a i have a very unique skill set so it’ll it’s going to be you know it’ll be different whatever whoever moves into the artistic director role it’s going to be a different organization that’s okay you don’t want to cookie cutter the same person you know going forward that’s why when i first started with maui choral arts i made a point of and at least one concert each season bringing guest

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conductors in you know i had bob wills guest conduct one season i had vania jerome come in and guest conduct i stephen rodriguez come in and guest conduct and that’s because it’s always good for a chorus it’s always good for an audience to feel the perspective of different conductors because that’s how we grow as an audience that’s how we grow as a musical organization is by being exposed to different perspectives musically so whoever takes over this job will bring a new perspective but hopefully

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it’s one that people will embrace and grow with with the same faith that they did with me because i came in no one knew what to expect no one they knew how the course was run before the kind of music that was chosen before and i was really in unknown quantity and the first two concerts i was kind of with programming i was feeling out what was working and what wasn’t working because i initially leaned towards a more classical uh programming style but i realized i was missing people people weren’t

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going latching on with that harder approach that more conservative approach so i opened that up then to the broader spectrum which we’ve settled into as of now and whoever takes over i’m sure we’ll do the same thing there’s a lot of really wonderfully talented people here on maui who haven’t had the opportunity to show that side of themselves and hopefully when the chorus is ready to do that search and fortunately or unfortunately because of covid we’re not in a rush to make that decision because we’re not

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going to be singing probably for another year so it’s fine to just take our time and see what bubbles up and what’s the right fit and i think that will be the biggest key is who’s the right fit who’s that group of people behind you that’s maui choral arts uh they looked all familiar is that a banner or something or is that uh i can’t tell is that uh that’s just a photo from one of our concerts a virtual background virtual background i know i see you yeah i am hello hiding behind yourself hiding behind

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myself as one does um you know i when i think about uh interviewing you i you know i’m almost running out of things to say and that i really i think what people expect me to do is give you room to be the gary that they love you know you’re you’re i don’t know if you just had a joking style it’s almost like it just kept people on their toes and waiting for the next one-liner have you ever done stand-up comedy uh nothing officially but that’s kind of always been the way my brain works is it’s sort of a

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stream of consciousness kind of thing and especially when i’m doing music i’ll hear something a pair of chords that will spark a memory for me and then that memory tends to be something silly and so then i always i share that with everybody and if i share that that then leads me to something else which then leads me to something else and then next to you know i’m talking about you know uh falling sperm whales with a bag with a bowl of petunias on their head falling to earth in the middle of hitchhiker’s

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guide to the galaxy and then zipping off into a totally different direction about you know a banana and a purple flower i don’t know oh no i know it was just always just fun to watch you and uh people on the in the uh group would like egg you on they’re like trying to think of what they can to kind of spark gary to go into a routine so that was always fun doesn’t take much it doesn’t take much uh prompt me a little bit and i’ll just start gaming and then people like can we sing a

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little bit here because you know you’re running your mouth a lot like oh okay sorry now we we didn’t worry about the singing we were enjoying it i tell you i i just enjoyed you i i was there more for you than anything tell you the truth you were just a highlight i was just a really one better even better than going to the concert was going to the rehearsals that’s one of the things i liked about about the whole process and one of the things for me that’s always so important is you know we all

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have varying amounts of stress in our daily lives whether it be work or bills or relationships but we all have stress in our lives in various forms and formats so what i always tried to do it was always a central part of what i wanted this chorus experience to be wasn’t always so much about let’s learn to make sure that the f sharp comes on beat three and make sure that you pronounce a big o sound with a good rounded o on the third syllable of this word and make sure that you know the dynamic goes

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exactly like this every time but instead i want it to be more about you know what i had a really awful day today but now i’m at chorus rehearsal and everything’s fine and that becomes a refuge and a haven where you not only can just let all that go at the door but then smile and laugh a little and you know what happens your blood pressure goes down and your face starts being stops being so wrinkled up on top because you’re worried so much and your muscles relax and then your shoulders

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come down and you end up leaving relaxed your blood pressure is down your heart rate is down and you’ve got a smile on your face and a couple of tunes bouncing around your head and then you can go home and go back to the real world and it’s okay and you had a fairly rigorous uh rehearsal schedule so it took i mean it’s amazing that you had such a large group of committed people i mean what was the last show was like a hundred a hundred people we were over 100 yeah wow it was those little nuts little

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nuts but it’s interesting you know and this is a a dynamic that’s been studied in choruses uh worldwide once you reach a certain critical level of numbers of people in a chorus their individual abilities really don’t matter as much because it becomes sort of a herd mentality and everyone starts to pick up everything faster because they’re surrounded by the people so if you’ve got you know 30 people all singing bass then you may not know measure four but somebody else does and you’ll hear

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it but you might know measure eight and maybe that guy doesn’t know and so he’ll hear that and so it becomes this common denominator thing where everybody has a stiffer piece of the puzzle if there’s enough people there we get the whole puzzle and therefore it makes it easier for everyone to learn very difficult music if there’s enough of you and you make a more beautiful sound if there’s enough of you because all of the different qualities of sound that we all make individually

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balances out and you know you may have somebody that talks like harvey fierstein because they’ve been smoking for 50 years and you know they might sing like you know whatever but if you blend that with 300 other people who have a beautiful voice then they get the experience of singing and all the fulfillment of that and we still get a nice sound out of it because it all blends together i hear you have a chorus there is that one puppy or big puppy four and they’ve decided that now of course is the time they want to

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start doing laps back and forth behind me because why not right right absolutely yeah they get a little excited next thing you know they’re just darling back and forth i’ve got one little dachshund and then three lab mixes of various sizes the largest one being almost 90 pounds are they coming with you to the east coast absolutely wow absolutely and that’s been a logistical challenge let me tell you how do you do that you gotta kind of very carefully very carefully uh the little guy is

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gonna ride with us in cabin all the way out so that’s no problem wow that’s easy the other three are gonna have to go in cargo and i don’t know yet if they’re all gonna fly out the same day or one on one day two on the other or one on three different days because the airlines only make their cargo schedule two weeks out prior to the flight date and uh i’m not leaving until the end of the month so i can’t actually get those details yet but i’ve got the crates here and they’re

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getting used to sitting in the crates um so they’re having their treats and stuff in the crates and then uh one way or another one at a time they’re going to come i’ll have somebody here we’ll bring them to the airport after i get there and they’ll bring them and drop them at the airport and then i’ll be waiting at the other end to greet them and pick them up from there wow what a great experience in new york in manhattan or where you guys going to be no uh even though there are apartments

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that are affordable to buy in manhattan there are there are there are the prices have dropped ridiculously in manhattan right now because people have fled the city because of cobit but the problem with manhattan apartments is even if you get the purchase price down the monthly maintenance charges are still ridiculously high and you can’t ever get those down and those run sometimes three thousand to six thousand dollars a month and i’m like wow wow yeah it’s nuts it’s nuts uh bless you if you live in manhattan i

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can’t afford it but uh we’re looking at most likely either queens or most likely brooklyn so i’ve got a couple of realtors i’m working with up there and they found us some beautiful places that they’ve already pre-vetted will be okay with the four dogs that’s great so you’re gonna that’s gonna afford dogs wow i know that’s great you gotta find running room or find somewhere oh yeah we’re looking at places they’re near parks you know we’re trying to figure all this into our

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house hunting equations so what kind of musical groups are you thinking about in new york are they places mostly where you were before uh well they’re definitely two that i’ve been with before um the first one is a large group it’s about 200 singers and that’s the new york choral society they’re very very well known they do a lot of stuff with the big orchestras uh in the city and uh they’re wonderful they do a lot of the they do the classical repertoire mostly uh i did a wonderful concert with them a

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holiday concert with them featuring peter paul and mary were the guest artists and we were their backup course for their holiday album so that was a lot of fun and that was at uh that was at lincoln center that was at avery fisher hall it was called avery fisher hall at the time and now it’s john it’s getty hall i think it is geffenhall get them home and um david geffen boy yeah wow so it’s not called trump no that’s good so um that’s one course i’m gonna go back to and then the other one i’ll go

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back to for sure is the new york city gay men’s tourists because they’re just always fun and light music and great camaraderie and they’re just a hoot and a half so i definitely want to go back to them and then we’ll see what else percolates up and see what’s there because i haven’t been in the singing scene over there for so long there may be other fun things that i want to get involved in too yeah that’s happening again are you going to be working in manhattan or one

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of the other no my my my office is actually down in brooklyn so it’s it’s a could be a convenient commute for me to stay in brooklyn like i am i last time i was there so long ago i’m sure it’s completely different than i remember a lot has changed since the time i was away it’s a much nicer city now there seems to be more more kindness and empathy in the people and they’ve upgraded a lot of the infrastructure there’s like wi-fi now in most of the subways it’s like kind of

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crazy so you can still be on your phone and everything even on the subway that wasn’t the dachshund was it no that was no that was big fly that’s the big boy he’s on the backyard just hoofing away so uh is jace excited about going i imagine it’s a yes he is exciting experience there huh yep yep he was the impetus to get the whole thing to happen we went on vacation there two years ago and and at the end of it all he had really fallen in love with the city and he said is there any possible way we can

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move here i said if you sure you want to do it i can make it happen just give me a little time to put the pieces in place and so off we go what an exciting experience i always have that thing of you know if you can make it there you can make it anywhere but here you are you have made it in maui which i think is really we should make a new song but making it in maui and then bringing that back to new york is a great gift to them and you are a great gift to them oh thank you it’s very sweet i’ve i’ve had i’ve been so fortunate to

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have such a wonderful and rewarding musical experience here and to share it with so many people um you know i’ve been with two different church choirs as well as well as all these groups that i do with the community singing and the theater with and it has just been such a joy to share all of these different projects with everybody and and then the audiences too who seem to have loved it so it’s it’s been it’s been a hoot do you have any kind of base of of friends in new york are you going

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kind of cutting a new road no actually i’m not cutting a new road my best friend from high school still lives in the city and uh that’s who we stayed with when we went on that vacation two years ago so i’ve got that built in i’ve got some family who still live out on long island so i’ve got family in the area and uh and some other folks that we know as well so yeah we’re not going into it blind as far as social contacts either right you know i think i’m just looking up time

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um we got plenty of time although you know we can do it any way we want um i want i feel like i want to give you the floor to kind of say hello and in some ways goodbye at least for now with a lot of people here on the island would that be a powerful time for you want to do it i think i’ll be lovely yeah so i figured almost like looking in the camera and talking to some of your friends out here who i know have been asking so many people have asked me to to bring gary Leavitt on again they really love you

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well you know it’s it’s been an amazing experience and you know i think first of you know as i’m looking at things that a lot of people i need to be thankful for um initially you know if you look at the people who’ve allowed me to make these contributions musically and i have to thank all the people who have ever served on the maui choral arts board especially to the current the current board but there have been a lot of people that have served on that board over the years who helped

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save the course from extinction when things were going rough for it and putting it all together and then asking me to be the the musical head of it and then kept it all going so we’ve had you know a great board president who’s also herself she went back to the main of the while back carolyn mccammon and we’ve had carly rose who was a board president for a while and liz Leavitt who is the current board president and no relation to me by the way uh you know these people who sit in that

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driver’s seat are the ones that really keep the ship going in the right direction and that goes within for all the board members who serve and there’s so many of them over the years but the most recent ones we’ve got you know stacy proctor and al cantorna and molly molly fleming and [Music] um uh and gina duncan and uh all the other people that have been serving on the board cheryl who handles all of our books cheryl lindley the amazing cellist who’s can do so many things she’s

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a whiz at so much she’s the executive director of the maui pops and she does our books and she’s a cellist and she’s incredible and uh and of course you know i couldn’t have done any of this music without lotus our accompanist our pianist without her there to enable me to do what i do none of it would happen because i can’t play piano and i need someone to do that stuff for me to help me bring my thought process out into a tangible way because my thought process is a little bit strange and she understands how my

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mind works which is very helpful so you know so grateful for her being my my partner in that experience for so long and then you know looking at the people down at pro arts uh jonathan lehmann who passed away who was the big icon of pro arts who allowed me to do a couple of shows with him and and uh and everybody else who’s involved in that now um you know been then over and mapa of course david johnston uh who allowed me to uh while i was doing a role and he just watched me work in in les mis and then gave me that

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opportunity to to take a shot and gave me the fiddler on the roof opportunity and then which was an amazing experience to be on stage and then to turn around and have the confidence in me to say i want you to music direct these shows and bring them musically to life uh it’s been the most rewarding experience i’ve ever had theatrically was being at that podium in those rehearsal processes which were so intense and so long because we rehearsed those shows for 16 weeks before those shows would go

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up six days a week six days a week for 16 weeks and just you know the sharing of ideas between david and andre morrissette the choreographer and i uh it was just so much fun to create at that level with them and we were just like what about this what about this one we could try this we could try this what about can we add a couple measures in here to make that happen we turn that what do we do about that what does that sound like what does that mean and then just building on all of that kind of stuff

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has been an amazing experience and i’m so grateful for being allowed to participate at any level on those shows they’ve been breathtakingly beautiful fun as exhausting as they were i would never have missed the opportunity to do to do that and um yeah and uh at mapa what about you were also uh sure at the other theater also right yes i mean i i did um the pro arts shows and then i did over at maui on stage as well i did pirates of penzance over there which is my first actual show at maui on stage was pirates

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it was the first thing i had done that was a full show and i was about to music director show for them um before covid hit i was going to music direct priscilla queen in the desert which ended up having to get put on indefinite hole because of the covet yeah but that would have been fun then i would have been i would have music directed everywhere at that point and been involved in the directing team at all the theaters uh and that’s it’s been an exciting i’ve been so lucky to cross pollinated all

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the different organizations it’s been just so fun and i i would have to thank you know all of the hundreds of singers that have come to maui choral arts and you know they come in on the tide and they go out on the tide and then there’s some new ones that come in there’s some that float away and a lot of that you know bases on what music we’re doing on any given concert uh some people really they love the christmas music so they got to be in the christmas concert and then in the spring

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they wait and see what it’s going to be am i going to like it am i not going to like it maybe i’ll just wait for christmas again so some people come some people go but it’s it’s been wonderful to meet all these new people every concert season and then see them become inspired to work in music and and to learn and to explore their voices and figure out what it’s all about and what does music mean to you as a person because music i think affects us all very differently but very profoundly

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i think it affects us viscerally you don’t need any words to music to have this kind of impact on people but it touches us in a very primal place and that’s why i think it’s so important so all the singers who have come and gone over the years to make it work and all the guest artists who have come and sung with us i know it’s been circling like around facebook lately one of the best guest artist combos that we ever had was when lyanna and and katie came and did the flower duet you know people are still talking about

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that years later and we’ve had such wonderful musical moments that have happened on that stage during these concerts and i’m just glad that we were able to to manifest those and get those to happen and we’ve had everything from the sublime with that we’ve had bagpipes on the stage with us uh we’ve we’ve had just about all you can imagine we’ve had you know rock and roll combos we’ve done all kinds of stuff and a little comedy uh you brought some guests on stage oh yeah oh yeah you know we’ve had you

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know you know kathy collins has just been you know she’s wonderful and always brings such a light to everything she touches and she oh any time i would ask her do you want to do something with my show of course you know just everyone’s always so willing to come and help and sing and you know people like bob wills taking time out of his day to to conduct for a while and be a guest artist and sing for a while and um all the other people come jerry’s come and sign with us jerry eiding and amber narramore and

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molly shad and lisa paulson and you know we just have all these guest artists that have come and sung with us and it’s just we’ve been so fortunate to be so interwoven into the musical landscape here and it’s funny because we’re just a little community chorus really and yet we’ve really managed to to touch a lot of a lot of people and i think my connection with map has helped because every year you’ll see an influx of people in the christmas show who had just done the show with me at mapa that summer

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and i would always ask when we do our meet and greet at the first rehearsal all right so how many of you came from hunchback you know how many of you came from les mis how many of you came from jekyll and hyde and you know just interesting to see who got dragged in from where well i just think that they are it was you you’re the attraction i mean they may like singing but it’s working with you is really that i’m sure that’s what was the grabber well you know if i can be the tool to get them there that’s

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great but it’s the music that does the magic and i just i just facilitate it so they’re the ones who do all the work i found that last show with all the foreign languages in it that that stopped me but you had a lot of people learning italian and all kinds of languages that was really yeah ariel was coming in singing to be in italian and things italian in french oh you name it we’ve been the whole nine yards ago german all kinds of good stuff wow so um i um i really have appreciated you

37:08

and i i kind of feel like i was pulled in late in the game but i’m so happy to have met you and and know you and um i wish you absolutely the very very best there in new york and i thank you stay in touch with us here oh yeah absolutely absolutely so uh yeah it’ll be fun and it’s been an amazing ride and i couldn’t have done it without all these wonderful people who’ve lifted me up to do these things and i i these are experiences i’ll be able to carry with me for the rest of my life so

37:41

it’s it’s been a wonderful time and i’m just very thrilled so thank you to everybody yeah and i’m sure that in in my wishing you the the best my voice is for the chorus of people that really love you and and wish you the absolute best there in new york you guys thank you thank you so much well out there in uh television and radio land we have really enjoyed spending time here with gary Leavitt a special thing to get him before he runs off gary thank you for being here with me today thank you so much for having me

38:19

again you are welcome anytime and i hope you’ll keep us all posted on what you’re doing absolutely and uh maybe we’ll all come to new york and crash on my couch absolutely yeah we got a lot of you have a lot of people on one couch but yeah it’ll be cozy it’s fine with the four dogs yeah well thank you all for joining us out there we wish you a warm aloha and uh thank you again have a beautiful day thank you bye you