Mihana title

The
Mihana
Story
The real Mihana story begins in the family house on Maui, called "Puamana." Mihana remembers it as a place filled with people...kids, family, friends and love. Her large family, the Fardens, were singers and musicians. Her mother Irmgard, one of several songwriters in the family, began writing while she was working on Molokai in 1935. She wrote her first hit in 1937, "Puamana," which tells of the Farden family home.. But, let Mihana tell it...

“I am called by my middle name, Mihana, but my first name is Irmgard. I was named Irmgard after my mother, and my earliest memories are with her in the kitchen. While she cooked she would sing to me and then as time went on she taught me harmonies to her many Hawaiian music compositions.

I sang informally with my mother throughout my high school and college years. So it was no wonder when, at 27 as a wife and new mother, I asked her what I needed to do to sing professionally. Mom, who was 65 at the time, said, "Mihana, get a bass!" which I did that very night, and my career with mom was born.

I became the alto singer and stand-up bass player in our family musical group that mom formed, called Puamana, which also included my sister, Aima and my cousin, Luana.”

"Puamana" the Farden family home

Puamana home
Puamana Album

Irmgard later chose Puamana as the name of the group she founded in the mid-1960s. The original lineup was Irmgard, her sister Diana and Thelma Anahu. In 1975 Puamana was restructured as a quartet featuring Irmgard, her daughters Mihana and Aima, and her niece Luana Farden McKenney. The quartet remained intact until Irmgard "retired" (but continued to perform) in 1998 and Luana returned home to Maui in 1999.

“Over the next 23 years and under mom's guidance, we enjoyed great success. Most of all, we experienced the tremendous joy and satisfaction of singing 4-part harmonies and sharing our rich island heritage together as a family, through our music.

At 86, mom retired and once again I went to her, asking her what I needed to do to write music. My mother this time answered, "Mihana, write what you know, share what you feel." Well, I'm not so sure that what I'm writing about I necessarily "know," but as Mihana, I invite you into my world...filled with light...touched with rust...and shared with love. I dedicate this music to my mother who continues to inspire me and to light up my world with her warmth and grace.”

Mihana and Aima continued to perform as Puamana, with this relative or that as the third member of the trio, while Mihana also worked on music for her solo album. The title song, "Rust on the Moon," was one of Irmgard's compositions. The others were originals that range in style of modern hapa-haole to light local-style rock to beautiful torch songs.

Recognition came quickly in the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards of 2003. Mihana’s first solo album, "Rust on the Moon," won Jazz Album of the Year. Mihana spoke movingly of her late mother, Irmgard Farden Aluli, who composed the title song. "It's in her memory that I accept this, and in her name."
 "Rust On The Moon" album

Rust On The Moon Album
"One Little Dream" album

One Little Dream Album

A second album, “One Little Dream” followed. Wayne Harada, in a Honolulu Advertiser review said, “Hard to categorize and not easily explainable, Mihana has emerged as a refreshingly different and continuously delightful Island songbird, sharing stories with the appealing posture of a folk artist. Our take: Mihana is living her dream with a still-in-the-bud career as a soloist; she's on the move and breaking new ground.”

John Berger’s review in Island Mele said even more. “Mihana Souza took a lot of people by surprise with her first solo album, "Rust on the Moon." Who knew that a woman with such impeccable traditional Hawaiian music credentials had such range as a pop artist? "Rust" earned Souza her first solo Hoku Award in 2003. "One Little Dream" proves that we ain't heard nothing yet.

Souza opens with a very non-traditional version of a family chant, then moves with ease through a marvelous collection of original light jazz and foot-tappin' acoustic rock. "Don't" brings Christine McVie to mind, and on "Road" she sounds just a touch like Enya, but Souza never clones the voices of other artists. Why should she when her own is so mesmerizing?

The arrangements impress, too. The rock tunes rip; the jazz ballads are cocktail-lounge smooth. Touches of ukulele and steel guitar give "Wrap" an exotic tropical sound. Dobro and mandolin provide folkish nuances elsewhere.

As with "Rust," the title song is a composition by her mother, the late Irmgard Farden Aluli. Souza interprets it beautifully. Other family ties include erudite annotation by Hailama Farden (representing a different branch of the Farden family), and the fact that "Chucky" is a rocking ode to her husband's awesome culinary skills.”

1998 Hall of Fame Honoree
Irmgard Farden Aluli
(1911- 2001)

Irmgard Farden Aluli

The most prolific female Hawaiian composer since Queen Lili`uokalani, Irmgard Aluli has written over 200 songs. She is still counting, as she never bothered to keep a record of her output. She wrote her first composition, "Down on Maunakea Street", in 1935.

Irmgard's first hit song, "Puamana", was composed in 1937. Homesick for her Farden family home, Puamana, in Lahaina, Maui, she composed her song while serving in Moloka`i as a field agent for the University of Hawai`i Agricultural Extension Service. In time, it became the name of her well-known family quartet, formed in the 1970s. Irmgard, her daughters Mihana and Aima and her neice Luana have performed from California to New York, and remain "on call" for major celebrations and public concerts in Hawai`i.

One of ten children, Irmgard was raised in an environment of music. Her parents, sisters, brothers and numerous relatives were all gifted with musical talent. Long before she began composing tunes and writing lyrics, Irmgard was singing in family music sessions, at school, and in church choirs. It was through these activities she developed her strong alto voice, and learned to play `ukulele, bass, guitar and piano. She credits her ability to "feel harmony" as a result of many hours improvising harmonies with her brothers and sisters to sheet music brought home from school.

Many have ranked Irmgard's "E maliu Mai" as her best song. She wrote it in the 1950's as an alternative to Charles E. King's "Ke Kali Nei Au" which she felt was worn from use. The romantic feeling of King's classic is retained in Irmgard's simple short version by use of the echo effect of a love call. Other memorable standards are "Lapahoehoe Hula" (Boy from Lapahoehoe), for which Irmgard composed the music, and Kawena Pukui wrote the lyrics. "Baby Kalai" was written in 1943 for the Baby Lu`au of the first Aluli grandchild born into her husband's family. Both songs are still being performed and recorded.

"Auntie Irmgard" as she is called today, also composed many songs touching on a spiritual theme. Her children's songs have distinguished her in the small group of Island composers, mostly women, who have written Hawaiian songs for children. Noted Hawaiian music teacher and arranger, Dorothy Gillette, has said of Irmgard "(she) has created melodies that are singable and memorable." A recipient of many honors and awards for her "simple, distinctively Hawaiian" compositions, and her contributions to the music education of Hawai`i's children, Irmgard Aluli is a Living Treasure of Hawaiian music.
Mihana in the movies!

“The Red Hibiscus” is the story of a present-day Honolulu detective who is obsessed with the past and only accepts old, dead-file cases from HPD, cases from an era when “a noble heart still beat within the walls of this now cadaverous city.” One day he accepts the case of the Red Hibiscus, a Hawaiian torch singer who disappeared in the late fifties. The singer used to perform at the now defunct Red Hibiscus nightclub on Hotel Street. The detective sees an apparition of the singer in the bar next door (Smith’s Union) and chases her through the streets of downtown Honolulu until he corners her in a dead end alley. The surprise ending which follows reveals that the woman is the embodiment of Honolulu in a simpler, more innocent time.

In her screen debut, Na Hoku Hanohano award-winner I. Mihana Aluli Souza plays The Red Hibiscus singer. Mihana performs “Rust On The Moon”, a song written by her mother in the 1940s and the title track of her Hoku-award-winning CD. “The Red Hibiscus” is an 8 minute, Black & White film noir produced by Pennybacker Creative, LLC.

Both Mihana's albums, "Rust On The Moon" and "One Little Dream" are available through:
The Mountain Apple Company
Click here to go to the order page for "Rust On The Moon"
Click here to go to the order page for "One Little Dream"
© Mihana Souza 2006