A Hawaiian Tune
By Maryanne George ('71, M.A. '72)
LSA professor Amy Stillman scored a Grammy for her work on an album of original songs in the Hawaiian language.
Amy Stillman didn’t go to graduate school to become a songwriter. A Native Hawaiian, she came of age in the 1970s as Hawaiians were rediscovering their heritage, and had dedicated her life to the study of Native Hawaiian music, language, and culture. In 1998, she joined U-M’s faculty.
But on Feb. 8, 2009, she stood on stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and received a Grammy Award for songwriting in her native language. Stillman (above, right) and her collaborators, Daniel Ho (middle) and Tia Carrere (left), were being honored for their album ‘Ikena, which was chosen as the Best Hawaiian Music Album.
Hear a music sample from the winning album, 'Ikena.
It was a stellar achievement for the trio. Not only was it the first time since the category was created in 2005 that the award went to a recording act rather than producers of a compilation of songs, it also honored original Hawaiian music written by Hawaiians.
Stillman was overwhelmed.
She thanked both the Hawai’i Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for “acknowledging excellence in Hawaiian music by Hawaiians no matter where our life’s journeys have taken us.”
“This was outside my comprehension,” Stillman says, recalling the magical moment. “It closed a circle.”
That circle joined together her academic and musical life in a new way, though the initial pairing had begun many years prior.
Learning the Hula
Growing up in Hawai’i, Amy Ku’uleialoha Stillman had yearned to rediscover the Native Hawaiian culture that had been suppressed by colonization in the 19th century. Even her last name, Stillman, is a symbol of the colonization, she says.
“After annexation to the United States in 1898, Hawaiian elders came to consensus that the path to success was to learn English and give up the Hawaiian language,” she says. “My parents were of the generation that was punished for speaking Hawaiian, so our generation was cut off from the language. I had to study the language in college.”
At the University of Hawai’i, Stillman studied the Hawaiian language and earned two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree in music and Hawaiian studies.
Stillman wanted to challenge anthropologists who had stereotyped Hawaiian music and culture. She earned a doctorate in musicology in 1991 from Harvard and became an expert on the origins of the hula, working to document the deep cultural roots of the hula and refute popular stereotypes.
“Hula has always been an entertainment form and parts of it are ritualized and sacred,” she says. “It was always based on poetic texts. You can’t have hula without poetry. Before the missionaries introduced written text, the poetry was transmitted by oral translation and memorization. There was no written language. I am trying to piece together the story of hula music before the 1970s renaissance in Native Hawaiian culture. The elders’ accounts differed from archival sources. I wanted to know, how did we get to point where there are so many stories out there? It’s not about debunking these stories. The stories are part of the record.”
Part of that record had been preserved by a free Hawaiian language press that was established in 1861. By the late 1800s, 125,000 pages had been archived and were recently digitized by research libraries in Honolulu.
In 2006, Stillman’s scholarship on the hula led her to a group of hula instructors in southern California and to Daniel Ho, a Hawai’i-born singer and songwriter living in Los Angeles. Stillman knew of many poetic Hawaiian texts in the archives, which she edited and translated so the instructors could record the ancient Hawaiian music with Ho.
The collaboration produced two CDs, which were released on the Daniel Ho Creations label. It also gave Ho the inspiration to produce an album of original songs in the Hawaiian language.
The ‘Ikena project was born. Stillman began writing original lyrics, searching the Hawaiian language newspaper digital archives for inspiration. Ho composed the melodies, and actress Tia Carrere joined Ho in performing the songs on the recording.
Composing was a new and exhilarating experience for Stillman.
“I am a scholar, I had books to write,” she says, referring to her job as an associate professor in American Culture and Musicology at U-M. She teaches courses on American music, Asian American studies, and a creative expression course on the hula. Stillman is considered a leading scholar on Hawaiian culture—yet she still made time for the musical collaboration. “The words started coming and it was a lot of fun. It was also a welcome change from the caution one takes in scholarly writing.”
The album was nominated for a Grammy on Stillman’s birthday. It was an unexpected gift, and the album became a metaphor for her new artistic venture.
“‘Ikena means panoramic vista,” she says. “As we see more we know more and as we know more we experience more. All three of us were born and raised in Hawai’i, and we now all live elsewhere. Our journeys have enriched our experiences and enriched what we are able to sing about.”
For more information on 'Ikena, visit www.danielho.com/html/ikena.html