Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma gives an outdoor concert on a borrowed cello at Papaloa Cemetery on the Airport Road in Kalaupapa, Molokai, on Nov. 30. (Courtesy photo)
A reflection on Yo-Yo Ma’s Kalaupapa concert among the headstones
By Sisters Alicia Damien Lau and Barbara Jean Wajda
Special to the Herald
“Melody of Love.” That seems a fitting description of the moving performance of Yo-Yo Ma as he made his borrowed cello sing with the energy of all those who have ever lived on the Kalaupapa peninsula.
The setting was Papaloa Cemetery on the Airport Road on Nov. 30. The intimate, half-hour performance for a small group of residents, patients and National Park Service employees was part of a worldwide tour “exploring how culture connects us to the natural world.”
“Over the next several years, Yo-Yo will visit places that epitomize nature’s potential to move the human soul, creating collaborative works of art and convening conversations that strengthen our relationship with our planet and each other.”
This description on his website falls far short of describing Yo-Yo’s humility, his ability to touch hearts with his words and music and the soulful rendition of his selected pieces, accompanied only by the sound of the wind and birdsong.
Both of us were deeply touched by his performance of “Ave Maria.” It brought Sister Barbara Jean to tears.
His energy when he spoke with people matched his energy while he played, very intense and totally present. After performing Yo-Yo made sure to spend time talking to the two patients in attendance, asking them if they enjoyed the mini concert.
He also really wanted to experience Kalaupapa and was able to have lunch in Kalawao and drive around a little with park service employees.
Several people chose to sit on the ground (aina), in sync with Yo-Yo’s comments about connecting with the energy of those who have gone before us and nature itself. In the context of his understanding that energy cannot be destroyed, he began his concert with a piece that honored all the energy in this sacred place.
Sitting there, I wondered what it was like when St. Marianne was here. Did they have music? Yes, they did. In her journals, Franciscan Sister Leopoldina Burns wrote about music 25 times! She spoke about a 45-year-old patient whose face was disfigured and said, “I never heard anyone play the flute so well. I loved to hear him play the soft sweet music of the flute during Mass and benediction.”
In another section, she mentioned that “Suddenly, we heard such sweet music.”
“We sisters looked through the window, and two little boys were on the corner of the veranda,” she wrote in one of her unpublished journal. “One played the harmonica very softly, and the other sat with his arms folded and his little pale face turned up to heaven as he raised his pure silvery voice, singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’
“Eight girls were at a table in the center of the dining room, standing around it with their musical instruments in their hands. While Mother Marianne watched, they played and sang their jolly native songs while the women and girls marched in and took their places at the table. On such a happy day, they forget that they are poor outcasts.”
Sister Leopoldina added, “We do all we can to make them forget it, and we love to see them happy because they are God’s poor dear children. And we know they are very dear to his Sacred Heart.”
Music was so much of life in Kalaupapa. Musical instruments such as the piano, autoharp, organ, guitar and ukulele were always available. The patients practiced nearly all the time as they were so fond of music, allowing them to connect and find “lokahi,” the balance between human needs and the natural environment.
Speaking of the connectedness of energy, Leanna Lang, a National Park Services employee at Kalaupapa recently reshared a Facebook post she had made eight years ago to the day of Yo-Yo’s Nov. 30 Kalaupapa visit. Lang loves the cello and Yo-Yo, and so she found it significant that she posted about playing along to his Bach’s six suites for Unaccompanied Cello.
Could it be that the energy Yo-Yo spoke of surfaced through Leanna’s energy of eight years ago as she wrote this note?
Was the birdsong a way of expressing nature’s energy connecting to the beautiful power of the cello? Was the gentle wind a sign that the spirits of those who have gone before us were whirling in delight that their lives and stories were still remembered? We can only be grateful for Yo-Yo Ma’s presence in Kalaupapa, someone whose passion is to connect culture, the arts, all the energy of nature, and the past / present / future … as an instrument of unity and peace with a melody of love.
Kalaupapa had another VIP visitor recently. Actor Jason Scott Lee screened his new movie “The Wind and the Reckoning” for residents. The film focuses on a Native Hawaiian man who contracted leprosy in 1893 on Kauai but refused to be sent to Molokai.
