Starr Kalahiki is a Hawaiian musician with a strong voice and vibrant presence, but she is known for her jazz and rock performances, not for singing in the Hawaiian language. When she sings “E Lokahi,” a Hawaiian-language song written to the melody of the Beatles’ “Come Together” tomorrow at a fundraising event in honor of Queen Liliuokalani, it will be like nothing she’s done before.

The new song is just one piece of “Na Leo o ke Ola: Celebrating the Voices of Life,” an event that includes a performance by Keali’i Reichel, screening of a short film about the queen, and a luau dinner.

Kalahiki says the song is a message about finding one’s identity as a modern Hawaiian, urging all who hear it to “move forward with combined strength,” and says considering it has moved her to tears.

“This song has been functioning as a tool in my life,” she said, speaking in an earnest rush during a telephone call. “It’s something I’ve been concerned about all my professional career — being a Hawaiian singer but not singing Hawaiian music.”

Hawaiian-language professor, songwriter and kumu hula Puakea Nogelmeier, who wrote the lyrics for “E Lokahi,” says, “Doing the Beatles in the Hawaiian language? I think the queen would have been loving it. … I think it will end up being very, very Hawaiian.”

Kalahiki says her heart has always been in jazz. With her musical partner, keyboardist Kit Ebersbach, she recently completed recording on an album project so new that it doesn’t yet have a name. For a few months she also rocked out with the band Missing Dave. That’s all very different from joining a lineup that includes Reichel for an event steeped in Hawaiian history.

“This is something I hold very sacred,” she said.

“NA LEO o ke Ola” celebrates Hawaiian history, language and music while providing an opportunity to learn more about the life of Queen Liliuokalani.

The event is meant to recall gala parties hosted by the queen, who was deposed in 1893. It is the eighth annual event presented on behalf of the Pu’a Foundation, formed in 1996 by the United Church of Christ as part of an “apology, redress and reconciliation initiative” for the church’s role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. The foundation’s Hawaiian Historical Production Project funds films that explore the circumstances of that era.

Entertainment includes performances by Reichel, Mailani Makainai, Marlene Sai and Na Pualei ‘o Likolehua, in addition to Kalahiki.

Nogelmeier, who spoke by phone from California where he was judging a hula competition with Reichel, called Reichel “an excellent example of that bridge from traditional into modern” for Hawaiians.

The evening’s centerpiece is a short film about Liliuokalani, created by Kaui Sai-Dudoit and compiled from interviews and historical sources such as Hawaiian newspapers, the Bishop Museum Archives and Hawaii State Archives.

“Information about Queen Liliuokalani during the events around the 1893 overthrow have been well documented,” Sai-Dudoit stated in an e-mail. “However, this video will also provide highlights about the queen’s life after 1893, through 1917 — the date of her passing.”

Nogelmeier, who was involved with translating materials used in the film, calls it “insightful,” and says the idea was to “let the queen speak for herself.”

After the showing, Sai-Dudoit, a filmmaker and historian, Nogelmeier, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, and Washington Place curator Corrine Chun Fujimoto will be available for a discussion.

Nogelmeier and Sai-Dudoit have been deeply involved in the Bishop Museum project Ho’olaupa’i: Hawaiian Newspaper Resource, which has sought to digitize and create on online resource from the Hawaiian-language newspapers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Find it online at nupepa.org.

One significant piece of information that has been uncovered in researching Liliuokalani’s history, according to Nogelmeier: The queen, known for her love of music and songs in the Hawaiian language, considered dedicating her legacy to the preservation of Hawaiian language and mele. Ultimately, she directed the bulk of her legacy to the support of Hawaiian children, but Nogelmeier says, “As we unfold the archive of Hawaiian history, it makes it three-dimensional. … It adds more to that picture.”

—Elizabeth Kieszkowski / ekieszkowski@staradvertiser.com