(♪♪♪) Aloha, I'm Kalai Miller and welcome to Home is Here.

In 2024, the University of Hawaii Band is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

For a century, this vibrant program has enriched the lives of students, athletes, alumni, fans, and the community through live performances at sporting events, as well as sit-down concerts.

These talented musicians work around the clock to share tradition and pride, and aloha to the state of Hawaii and beyond.

(♪♪♪) Jeffrey: The UH bands isn't just one band.

It's our marching band, our 300 piece Rainbow Warrior marching band.

It's three concert bands.

It's all the pep bands that play at the women's, men's basketball and volleyball games.

It's our chamber groups.

It's all the service we give to the community.

The UH bands began, well, 100 years ago as this 18 piece Drum and Bugle Corps, Drum and Bugle band that played at a few UH functions, I think was connected to the ROTC program here.

So our UH bands program has been around for 100 years, starting in 1923 and over the years has grown and grown and grown.

There have been some pretty significant figureheads or people that really contributed to the growth of the UH bands program.

First among those is Richard Lum.

Richard S. Lum, was Director of Bands from I believe, 1960 to 1985.

UH was fortunate enough to get this man who was such a visionary into what this UH bands program was going to be.

Richard Lum was instrumental in the growth of the UH bands program, through the force of his personality, through his recruiting efforts, through his efforts with the state legislature in getting scholarship dollars connected to the band program.

So before Richard S. Lum was Director of Bands, this 50, 70, 80 piece group grew into this 200 piece band that was performing all over the campus and athletic events and et cetera.

When Richard Lum retired from UH bands, Grant Okamura came into our family, our ohana here, he was Director of Bands from 1985 to 2010.

Grant Okumura would take the band's program and grow it the wind ensemble toured to the mainland, the wind ensemble had guests artists would come and perform with us.

So he did a lot for our bands program.

Gwen: So our first event for (♪♪♪) Gwen: So our first event for our 100th anniversary for the UH band is a reconnect and a get together for band alumni throughout all the years and all the ages.

We invited everybody to come here and just reconnect and talk story, get to see each other again, you know, just get to hang out and just have a good time.

Jewel: It was fun to be part of a group something that's bigger than yourself just to be part of a bigger group is it's fun to be in a crowd where everyone has similar interests and similar goals.

And it's just a fun experience.

Gwen: So, I think we've had people here from the 60s all the way to just graduated last year.

So whatever that span is, we've seen the alumni from all the way.

(laughing) (♪♪♪) Jeffrey: Bravo.

Bravo.

Yeah that really cooks at that tempo I like that and I like that we're leaning forward on the gas pedal and not letting go of that.

It's a small thing.

Last beat three four one, da, da,da.

All of you, quarter notes a little bit longer than even giving just a little bit longer 2,3,4,1.

You'll make life easier (♪♪♪) You'll make life easier for the high brass if you sustain through that.

Yeah, they'll feel a little bit less exposed and hopefully a little bit freer to take chances and go for it.

The wind ensemble is Bop, bop, one!

(♪♪♪) (applause) The wind ensemble is the premier concert band here at the University of Hawaii.

And as such, the players in that group are pretty darn talented.

And so I'm very fortunate to get to work with 45 or so of the most talented wind and brass and percussion players, students, here at UH.

We have an ambitious agenda in terms of performances in terms of commissions of new works.

In terms of performing of guest artists.

We've been able to travel as well.

In recent years, we've put a lot of energy into how our ensembles connect with the community we serve.

The University of Hawaii Wind Ensemble exists to serve all of Hawaii.

And rather than just reach the audiences that go to us and concerts, we're wanting to reach out to the community itself through various ways and a couple examples of that might be our chamber groups, our chamber groups go out and perform in the community in maybe places that you might not expect.

Weʻve in the last couple of years performed at the Waiawa Correctional Facility a couple of times traveled over there performed, gotten to know the facility and gotten to know the people there a little bit.

We also performed at the women's We're really keen on the idea of our wind ensemble and our band program in general, connecting with as wide a population as we can connecting with as many facets of the community as we can.

(♪♪♪) Lahainaluna is the alma mater for Lahainaluna High School, it was written, 1898, by a student there at Lahainaluna High School, so moved by the beauty, looking down on the campus.

It's the only alma mater in the state and in the entire country that's in Olelo Hawaiian.

The band director at Lahainaluna High School right now is a student from UH.

And before that he was in the band at Lahainaluna High School.

So we have a connection there.

And we felt we felt like we needed to do something to give something musically.

So we had another former student here, Jordan Goto, a member of the Royal Hawaiian Band, arrange their alma mater for us.

(♪♪♪) Gwen: Up here at the University of Hawaii the pep band plays at Arena sports.

(♪♪♪) So we play at men's and women's volleyball, and men's and women's basketball.

And the impact that the pep band has at games, I feel is like enormous it's, it's all about college spirit, and college rah rah, getting the crowd excited playing music that they will enjoy getting the crowd to cheer with us getting the crowd to say, let's go bows or sing the fight song.

We have an important presence at the game.

I mean, it's fun to be at games, and I think it's just fun to be a part of the whole excitement of it all.

So the balloon hats.

I'm not even sure what year it started.

But it started with a band parent, his daughter was in the band.

He actually came up to me and said, Hey, let's, you know, let's start this, it'd be kind of fun.

We'll make some balloon hats.

And you know, you can wear it at the game.

And so he started making me a balloon hat at every game.

Now, the person who makes my hats now has changed is now a band alumni.

He used to play trombone in the band.

Now he makes all my hats.

All my balloon hats.

I think the pep band does several things for all the different view, you know, all the different people who come to games.

It helps them feel a collegiate atmosphere, it helps them feel like we're a home team.

It helps them feel like hey, we can cheer along and we can sing along or we can clap along with the different songs, or the fight songs.

And you know, like how people sing along with our fight song now.

I think that's so awesome.

I mean, to (♪♪♪) I mean, to hear people clapping and singing and, or seeing people dance, it's exciting.

And I think just creating that spirit in the arena, or at pep band is so fun.

And the more the more we can do to create that kind of atmosphere, the better it is for everybody.

You know, you got to create that college spirit that home team excitement and things like that.

(♪♪♪) Adam: A marching band is essentially a collection of winds.

Usually, percussion drumline can be more than that, but doesn't necessarily be and then auxiliary units Color Guard twirlers dance teams, depending on the makeup.

And essentially it's a a band of people who play a musical instrument and move around on a football field at the same time.

(♪♪♪) The marching performs at all the home football games.

And then the marching band membership make up pep bands and things that play around as well.

So when you go to a basketball game, a volleyball game, or you see a band at a pep rally or on campus playing an event of some kind, those are all marching band students.

So the marching band as a large identity or as a large ensemble plays at the home football games, and then its membership split up to play a lot of different things.

So we see it as almost a complete athletic band program.

(ambient noise) Marching band rehearses Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 3:45 to 5:15 as an ensemble.

We'll start with warmup and breathing exercises and things that you need to do to develop your technique, then we will work on just music standing still in an arc set, just so we can focus in on music and sound and learn the notes and rhythms and style that we need to then we'll move on and generally will learn new drill on the field, they'll either learn the next show if they don't know it yet, or it'll be putting their movement they already learned with the music they just worked on.

And then combining those things together in one.

So when you when you break all of that down in an hour and 30 minute rehearsal, it's it's very fast paced, it moves very, very quickly.

(♪♪♪) Dane: We're there to uplift the spirits of the people around us, we have certain tags that we play for certain things.

For example, if we get a first down, we play the fight song.

Yeah, kind of lift the spirits get people involved.

Music kind of gets people going a little bit.

(♪♪♪) Adam: We play the Alma Mater at the end of every game with the team.

It's sort of the university's love song.

It is sort of honoring the university paying tribute to it in its history, we happen to have a lovely alma mater that has really great words.

Win lose draw, it doesn't matter.

The band, the football team, the cheerleaders, everybody involved, we love the University, we care about the university, we have pride in the university and that song is a way to sort of represent that.

(♪♪♪) (cheering) Rainbow Invitational is a high school marching band festival that we host every year here.

We bring in judges from across the country or the world to adjudicate our local bands.

It is not a competition.

It's just a festival.

It's just a way for all of our bands to come together, play for each other play for our community play for the other band parents and people that come out to see it and just sort of celebrate marching band on on the island.

So I believe there are 17 high school bands that will be joining us this year at rainbow.

And then at the end of the event, the Rainbow Warrior marching band will we'll put on a performance for them as well and hopefully they'll want to be a part of that in the future.

It's a really neat event.

The rainbow show this year, we're calling the UH band jukebox.

The first piece in the show is Sweet Georgia Brown, which came out in 1923.

So obviously nod to our founding and the music is just sort of entitled to represent music and the sort of signposts of music life pop music life in the country in the last 100 years.

The first movement is is jazz.

So it's based on Sweet Georgia Brown Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue Caravan, which is a very famous jazz standard takes us from 1923 up into the sort of 50s.

And just to kind of show how the world has developed we have Elvis’ hound dog.

And then that is combined with Doja Catʻs Vegas, which was is based on Hound Dog and was featured in the Elvis movie that was recently out.

So it's sort of hound dog that has transitioned from its original time till now.

And then the slow movement is Killing Me Softly, which is a similar thing.

The original 1970s version morphs itself into the 1990s R&B version as well.

So that takes us up through the 90s.

And then a sort of medley of music over the last seven or ten years, takes us through the the end of it.

It's essentially a study of sort of music and how it's developed in the last 100 years that we have existed.

(♪♪♪) Jeffrey: What I'm most proud of is just being able to be a part of the story, being a part of the history of this place.

We've been going for 100 years.

And the history, the legacy the foundation, the connection to the community, the hundreds, well, thousands of folks that have come through this UH bands program.

The number of students, the faculty have everyone connected to it.

I am proud and humbled to be a part of that history.

And to be part of that story going forward.

Adam: Students in music, learn an exceptional amount of things we often hear people talk about, you know that they have higher test scores, and they learn leadership and all of that is very true.

However, I think the most important thing they get out of it is an aesthetic education.

So you know, it teaches them to feel.

It's when your senses are alive when they're functioning at their highest possible level.

And it makes you better a better human.

It makes you more well rounded, it makes you empathetic.

And it makes you caring because you're just in touch with the world in a way that's different.

Gwen: I think any student that joins band is really joining the UH band family.

And it's really, you're really being a part becoming a part of an organization that is making you feel like you're part of a family, you know, you're you're making friends, you're getting involved in a community.

It becomes home and family to you.

I think that's one of the neatest things about it.

(♪♪♪) (cheering) Kalai: Tofu.

It’s a staple in many of our homes.

And while a variety of brands sold in stores are shipped in, there are still local and fresh options.

We’re off to Kalihi where Aloha Tofu is one of just a handful of tofu factories still operating in Hawaiʻi.

(♪♪♪) Paul: I tell people that tofu is is not a sexy food, it's, it's, you know, it's kind of like your best friend who stands in the background and is always there, you know, it's a it's a comfort food.

(♪♪♪) Aloha and welcome.

My name is Paul Uyehara.

I'm the president of Aloha Tofu Factory.

Aloha Tofu was established in 1950 by my grandparents who actually took over a friend’s small little tofu shop.

We’ve been at this location since 1976.

So, my grandfather did not know how to make tofu.

The story, he says that his friend taught him how to make tofu for two days, which sounds like a stretch.

But you know, maybe that's true.

And then he just left him to do it on his own.

(♪♪♪) So actually, tofu itself, the process is pretty simple.

And most factories follow the same system.

So, tofu is easy to learn, but it takes a lifetime to master.

In total, six of his children, all of his children in the second generation joined the company.

As for the third generation, I'm the only third generation remaining.

I did drag in my wife to help me out here.

When we were growing up, all my cousins, my two sisters, we all worked in the factory, usually unwillingly, but we all worked in the factory.

About high school, I started to think about my future.

I thought, you know, if I have the opportunity to come back and nobody else wants to continue, then I will, you know, try to help out and take over and continue this business.

The main reason for that is I felt that the factory, I started to see it as a living thing.

It provided for me and my family.

You know, of course, my father worked very hard.

My uncles, my auntie's my grandparents they all worked very hard.

And I thought as a way to give back, I should come back and help continued on the legacy of our familyʻs business.

(industrial noise) So right now right now we're putting up the soybeans for the next day's production.

So, it's kind of noisy because he gets blown up into our two tanks up there.

Then from there, it gets sent up to these two tanks.

These two tanks hold the soybeans overnight.

Water is added.

They soak for about eight to ten hours.

And then after that there'll be dropping down the next day.

Jay: My name is Jay Nakayama.

I'm the Vice President and our head driver of Aloha Tofu.

I started work in March 1983.

I came here because it was a small little family business.

That's why I started and it's close to my house.

That was the main reason.

I love what I do.

I come in late at night, nine o'clock.

I stay here three in the morning.

And there's just work to be done.

Paul: So what you see here is the soybeans dropping down into our, into our grinder.

In this grinder, it grinds up to soybeans and you get this this kind of mashed up soybean mix, yeah.

From there it goes into the cookers.

The cookers are gonna boil out the soybeans.

We use steam and it's going to cook the paste.

Then from there, it's going to be sent to the separator unit.

The separator unit it separates out the soy milk and the okara.

So, all this coming out right now is the okara.

Okara is a soybean meal basically that's all the insoluble fiber being separated out.

And then the milk gets put into this tank here.

This soy milk gets sent to a holding tank and that’s when we start making the tofu.

Working at a factory is not easy.

The main thing is that you're, you’re standing all day and you know, we don't have a air conditioned facility.

The windows are open, but it's it gets very hot, because we use steam to cook the tofu and the products.

The other aspect is also we cool the tofu off with water and so your hands are always gonna be wet.

And so you know that combination is not attractive for a lot of people.

And it's it's a job that takes, you know, a certain amount of perseverance and grit and patience.

Jay: Factory work is very hard.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people they don't want to be in a factory work.

They want to be at home, on the computer sitting down.

Paul: See how it's dropping in?

So, from here he's going to disperse it in the barrels, add the coagulant and then mix it to make the tofu.

So you can see right now, they're scooping the coagulated soy milk into the form boxes.

After they're put in there, they're gonna be covered with a cloth and a weight and then the water will be pressed out of it.

I would say about 80, 80-percent are immigrants, first generation immigrants, who may not be able to speak English very well.

They can come in here, they can work because it's a, you know, it's a job that you can learn visually.

And there's a certain level of repetition that you can become skillful at.

But at the same time, it offers you that step, you can take the next step.

So, you get comfortable, you understand how the economy works, how the culture in Hawaii works, or something, maybe you find something better, it pays better, better opportunities.

It's important that, you know, local manufacturers, local farmers, these types of businesses are supported.

Because they provide a place for people to belong to, and to exist.

Jay: The best part is working with the people we work with.

That's the best part.

We have good workers.

Paul: One big block of tofu makes 36 individual pieces.

(ambient noise) After he cuts it, he’s going to drop it in the water.

So, because the tofu is still hot, you have to separate it to make it let it cool down inside the water.

When I came back to the business in 1996, I believe there were eight or nine factories on Oahu.

Now, there's only two tofu factories on Oahu, and they're both in Kalihi.

And so, I think the main thing about that is that they didn't have successors to take over for them.

I myself have two sons, but they are both very much not interested in continuing on and working in the factories.

Jay: It's important to support these families because we need to have sustainability.

If not, you know, we're gonna lose all the culture and stuff you know not gonna have nothing local.

You know everything is being brought in from the mainland.

Even now you have tofu that comes from the mainland and people they don't know that yeah.

Some people think oh tofu is tofu but you know, if you buy fresh tofu that came in yesterday instead of tofu came in three months ago, it's a big difference yeah, the taste and texture and everything.

Hopefully it lasts another whatever how many years we, 70 years.

I mean, once it goes down, nobody's gonna start up another tofu factory.

It's same like the poi factories.

Same thing.

This is a generation thing yeah.

(ambient noise) Paul: When the tables full they'll take it over to this side and start putting it through the sealing machine.

So you have somebody on this side feeding the machine and it gets sealed with the film.

So as the tofu’s coming out, they put it into the trays, put a little bit of ice on there and then from there we put it into the walk-in reefers.

So then everything made today is going to be sent out the next day, basically.

So we do try to, you know, provide the freshest product possible.

So, the tofu business itself is is, you know, like tofu, it provides, I guess nourishment, we could say, for the community, for our employees, for our customers, whether it's the actual top product, the tofu or the business.

And so it's, it's always there, it's very steady, but it's not going to be the one like standing out in the crowd or something like that.

And we kind of prefer it that way, actually, just to sit back and plot away and just keep going steady.

Kalai: Mahalo for joining us.

Please visit pbshawaii.org or the PBS Hawaiʻi YouTube page for more from this episode.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalai Miller.

Go Bows!

(♪♪♪) Jeffrey: We need to create.

We need to make art.

And musical instruments allow ourselves to give voice to those innermost thoughts and feelings, often feelings that are difficult to put into words.

Or maybe the words don't even exist for that feeling.

Paul: So regarding natto, I did not grow up eating it, although my family made it, you know, in the factory for a long time.

And so, I initially did not eat natto.

But because I married a Japanese girl, a Japanese woman, you know, she said if you're making natto you sure as heck better be able to eat it.

So she helped me to overcome my fear of natto.

(♪♪♪)