Leilehua Lanzilotti

Liliʻuokalani’s Piano

Liliʻuokalani’s Piano is a new project which seeks to addresses issues of access, archive, music technology, through the development of new work.

The new virtual instrument, Liliʻuokalani’s Piano​, will be made with recordings from the sounds of the last Queen of Hawaiʻi's piano made from koa wood. The physical piano is currently housed at Washington Place, the Queen's last home. Because of its location, the piano is not accessible to most local Hawaiian musicians, let alone diaspora. Therefore, the project addresses this inequality through open-access virtual instrument development and archive creation.

To launch the project, new works will be commissioned that integrate the virtual instrument into Ableton Live, Max MSP, and the Monome Norns, an open-source sound computer that uses Lua and SuperCollider.

The project makes the sound and story of this unique instrument available to Hawaiian diaspora and others outside of Hawaiʻi. It imagines that archive can be dynamic and living in the hands of engaged artists. Liliʻuokalani's Piano challenges the performing arts field to imagine virtual instruments that hold cultural significance in their communities as important just as much as their sound.

Special projects, such as Liliʻuokalani’s Piano, are fiscally sponsored by Experimental Futures Corporation, a registered 501(c)(3) corporation. Donations are accepted free of product or service obligations. Donate here.