 PRESS
RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bill Tapia, 103 year-old
ukulele virtuoso,
to receive lifetime achievement award
100th birthday concert album to
be released this week digitally
(official CD release set for June)
CONTACT: Alyssa Archambault
| Paniolo Productions | (323) 547- 3482
alyssa@panioloproductions.com
| www.panioloproductions.com/media
For interviews with Bill in Hawaii May
24 thru June 4
Contact: Pat Enos (949) 283-9255 | palika@socal.rr.com
On May 29th, Bill Tapia is scheduled to receive
the 2011 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Lifetime Achievement
Award at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu.
The award is presented each year to artists who
have made lasting and significant contribution
to Hawaiian music and culture.
The honor will be followed by the release next
month of a new album: Bill Tapia, Live at the
Warner Grand Theatre – The 100th Birthday Concert.
Presented in the fall of 2007, the concert featured
Tapia performing songs from the great American
songbook as well as Hapa Haole Hawaiian classics.
He was accompanied by a select group of jazz musicians
including Kristin Korb, Frank Devito, Earl Allen,
King Kukulele and Abe Lagrimas, Jr. (2011 Nā Hōkū
Hanohano Award nominee for Extended Play Release
of the Year). The show marked Tapia’s second engagement
at the theatre—he first played there in 1935,
four years after it opened.
About Bill Tapia
Bill Tapia—singer, raconteur, jazz guitarist,
and ukulele legend—at age 103 is the oldest performing
musician in the world. In a career that spans
the 20th century, he’s played with a veritable
who’s who of American and Hawaiian music, including
Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Fats Waller, Billie
Holiday, Johnny Noble, Benny Nawahe, and Sol Ho’opi’i.
About Paniolo Productions
Paniolo Productions, based in Los Angeles, California,
is dedicated to producing Americana, jazz, blues,
world, and Hawaiian music concerts. Founder Alyssa
Archambault first contacted Bill Tapia in 2000
while doing genealogical research into her own
family’s rich Hawaiian music heritage—her great
grandfather’s cousin, Joseph Kekuku, was the creator
of the steel guitar. Archambault and Tapia immediately
became fast friends and she soon found herself
spearheading the guitar/ukulele virtuoso's return
to public performance. In 2007, Paniolo Productions
produced the Bill Tapia 100th birthday concert
in at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, CA.
More information:
www.panioloproductions.com/media
www.panioloproductions.com
www.billtapia.com
# # #
|
