Members of the Moanalua High School Orchestra spoke to Hawaii News Now (KGMB-TV)  this week in a news story that focused on how students in the performing arts are feeling this year about not only being able to practice in person, but also to perform in front of a live audience. 

“The real reason you come to orchestra, at least for me, is to play with the people there,” Senior Juliana Tabura, orchestra president, told reporter Samie Solina.

“Being in my room felt really lonely,” Moanalua High School Music Department President and senior Holly Fujita said, recalling her at-home practices last year. “It felt really empty.”

  Last year, Music Director Elden Seta had to edit individual Zoom videos of students playing their parts to cobble together concerts.  It was the only way to share the music, but even he knew it was not enough, not the same.

“We knew they were so unhappy, and not so much just unhappy, (but also) unmotivated,” he said in the news story, which ran November 19.

  The story also interviewed theatre students from Castle High School, whose production of “Anastasia” debuts next week.  For a link to the entire HawaiiNewsNow video, click below.

link to video