The Hawaii Concert Society’s second presentation of its 2024-25 season features a string quartet that takes its name from the renowned Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher and draws inspiration from that artist’s use of individual components working together to form a whole, as any quartet must do in order to succeed.
The Escher String Quartet, hailed by the New York Times for its “passionate elegance and deep feeling,” and currently the quartet-in-residence at New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, will present a concert at 7 p.m. this Wednesday at the University of Hawaii Hilo Performing Arts Center.
The quartet last performed in Hilo in 2013. Now in its 25th season, two of its members, violinist Adam Barnett-Hart and violist Pierre Lapointe, are its co-founders. The other two are cellist Brook Speltz ,who joined nine years ago, and his violinist brother, Brendan, who became a member just five years ago.
It is somewhat unusual for siblings to both be world-class classical musicians, but it helps to have parents who also are musical. In the case of the Speltz brothers, exposure to classical music was immediate. Their father is a cellist and their mother is a violinist.
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Brendan Speltz started playing the violin at age 6.
“Our parents would drag us to concerts, their concerts or ones they wanted to see and we’d go kicking and screaming,” he said in a press release. “Probably as a rule, kids don’t want to go to classical concerts. That makes sense because you have to sit there for two hours and listen to a form of music that might not make a lot of sense.”
Eventually their attitudes changed. “Both of us started liking classical music when our parents took us to a string quartet camp in Cape Cod,” he continued. “After our first day playing Haydn and Mozart quartets, something just clicked in our brains, and we became insatiable in our desire to rehearse and play.”
The Hilo concert will open with American composer Samuel Barber’s String Quartet No. 11. It contains the composer’s best-known music, the famous Adagio, often heard at somber events and, as expressed by musicologist Alexander Morin, “rarely leaves a dry eye.“
It will be followed by African-American composer Florence Price’s Quartet No. 2 in A minor. The first black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra (the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933), Price’s music combines a rich and romantic symphonic idiom with the melodic intimacy and emotional intensity of African-American spirituals.
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The concert will conclude with Antonin Dvorak’s Quartet in A flat major, considered one of his masterpieces.
Tickets for the concert by the Escher String Quartet ($25 general, $20 senior, $10 student) are available at the Most Irresistible Shop, Book, Basically Books, and the UH Hilo Box Office.
Remaining tickets will be available at the door starting at 6:15 p.m.
No. 3 Hawaii needed 77 minutes to sweep No. 18 Stanford 25-16, 25-15, 25-17 today at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, Calif.
The Rainbow Warriors improved to 11-1 with an eighth straight win that was as impressive as any victory this season.
Junior setter Tread Rosenthal finished with 38 assists, three digs, two aces and two blocks. His assists total was 17 more than Stanford’s entire team had in kills.
Hawaii hit .515 for the match, led by 12 kills from Kainoa Wade and 11 by Adrien Roure. Wade hit .588 with two hitting errors and Roure’s hitting percentage was .667 with one error. Roure had three aces, including one on match point.
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Louis Sakanoko added nine kills and middles Justin Todd and Trevell Jordan each had four kills.
Only one non-defensive starter for UH hit less than .429.
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Luke McFall had six kills and Theo Snoey, who had 23 kills the last time the two teams played in Stanford’s four-set win in Hawaii last year, was held to five kills.
UH and Stanford will play again on Saturday at 4 p.m.
A year ago, Boston travelers had nonstop flights to Hawaii on two different airlines. This winter? None. That’s because both Delta Air Lines and Hawaiian Airlines dropped their service between New England and the Aloha State.
But there’s good news to report.
Delta just announced it’s bringing back its Boston-Honolulu flights.
The Atlanta-based airline on Friday said it will restore service between Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), just ahead of the 2026 holiday season.
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Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa, Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. CLINT HENDERSON/THE POINTS GUY
The route will reclaim the title of America’s longest domestic flight and mark the return of a seasonal route Delta previously operated for just one winter between 2024 and early 2025.
But that wasn’t the only Hawaii news the carrier shared.
Delta also announced its Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) hub will get new nonstop service next winter to a second Hawaiian destination: Maui.
Both flights will launch Dec. 19, which, for those glancing at their calendars, is the Saturday prior to Christmas. (The holiday comes on a Friday this year.)
ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY
Those routes — one new and one returning — were among a series of other moves Delta revealed to bolster its service between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii for next winter, a warming thought after a brutally cold few weeks in much of the country.
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Here’s what to know about the new service.
Boston to Honolulu
Delta will operate its Boston-to-Honolulu route four times per week for most of next winter but plans to run its planes between New England and Oahu each day during the peak holiday travel rush.
The carrier will operate its BOS-HNL flights with an Airbus A330-300, which sports:
While Delta previously went head-to-head with Hawaiian on what was — and will soon be again — America’s longest domestic route, it appears the carrier will (for now, at least) have the run to itself … unless Hawaiian follows Delta in pulling an about-face on a route it cut last year, citing underperformance.
Lounge review: Inside the fancy Delta One Lounge in Boston
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Minneapolis-St. Paul to Maui
Passengers will also see the A330-300 on Delta’s all-new nonstop route from MSP to Kahului Airport (OGG) on the island of Maui.
View from the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa. CLINT HENDERSON/THE POINTS GUY
Delta will operate five weekly round trips on this route for most of the winter but will expand it to daily service during both the peak holiday rush and the busy spring break period.
This will be the carrier’s second nonstop flight to Hawaii from Minneapolis. It already flies between MSP and HNL.
Other Hawaii additions
On top of those additions, Delta is planning a larger Hawaii expansion for next winter.
The carrier will operate extra weekly flights to Honolulu from three hubs: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).
Elsewhere, the carrier is planning an earlier start this fall to its winter seasonal service from Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole (KOA) on Hawaii’s Big Island.
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Its flights from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to KOA will also get a bigger plane for the winter season — one of Delta’s twin-aisle Boeing 767-300s.
Read more: Some of our favorite ways to use Delta SkyMiles
Reclaiming the mantle
The return of Boston flights to Honolulu means current service to Hawaii from the New York City area will lose the distinction of being the longest domestic flights in America.
Still, there are plenty of nonstop options to the Aloha State from JFK and nearby Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), as TPG’s Clint Henderson recently experienced for himself.
The best hotels on Oahu, from luxury resorts to iconic hotels
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Bottom line
If you have a stash of Delta SkyMiles to use and like the sound of Hawaii for the holidays, I’d keep a close eye on Delta’s booking channels in the coming days to try to see how the newly released award space looks. Remember, as long as you don’t book one of the carrier’s “basic” award flights, you can get your miles, taxes and fees fully restored and refunded if you later have to cancel.
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A $100 million COVID testing program organized by a central figure in an ongoing donations scandal is facing new scrutiny with critics calling the effort a wasteful use of taxpayer money.
Tobi Solidum organized a plan for the National Kidney Foundation Hawaii to become a city contractor for testing with subcontractors including his own company and H2O Process Systems, owned by his friend, Milton Choy.
Choy was later convicted of bribing former state Sen. Kalani English and Ty Cullen for other favors.
In November 2021, the city paid nearly $20 million to bring in a customized testing lab inside a shipping container and start running a rapid test service at the airport with tests costing $120 each.
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Testing program called unnecessary
Former mayor Kirk Caldwell said the program was designed for island residents who wanted to “come down here, park, get swabbed, wait three hours.”
At the time, the city and Kidney Foundation said they were responding to a lack of rapid testing capability.
But Dr. Scott Miscovich, who led many other testing programs, said by the time the portable lab was delivered, there was plenty of testing available at lower costs.
The city program, which would eventually cost taxpayers and customers over $100 million, was a boondoggle, he said.
“It was just greed and the whole concept of easy money was being floated around, and everybody just said, ‘I’ll stick out my hand and just put in as much into my hand as you can as you go,’ and grab the big amount,” Miscovich said.
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Company files bankruptcy, cites problems
The mainland company that stood to gain the most, Contact Diagnostics, filed for bankruptcy last year.
The company called the program “chaotic” and said Hawaii officials urged the company to buy way too much testing supplies, which mostly went unused as vaccination increased and home testing became available.
The company said Solidum overbilled $7 million and left the country. He also caused trouble with his donation to Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, which was recorded by Cullen and cited in a federal sentencing document. He also allegedly bribed Cullen.
The Kidney Foundation later produced a video that described the testing program as heroic and featured reviews from politicians and former adjutant general Kenneth Hara.
“They organized, and they resourced themselves, and they brought this capability to Hawaii,” Hara said in the video.
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Foundation attorneys offered a link to the video when asked for comment.
Miscovich said the effort was a tremendous waste compared to how local companies like his performed.
“I lost $1.2 million doing testing in the state of Hawaii. I did not make money in the state of Hawaii doing testing. We just put ourselves out there to help, and we relied on the insurances to pay,” Miscovich said.
Milton Choy died in prison. Attempts to reach Tobi Solidum through a company he may have set up in the Philippines were unsuccessful.
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