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Homegrown Plus: Ledward Kaapana

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Ledward Kaapana, Hawaiian slack key guitar master, performs at the Coolidge Auditorium in the 2017 Homegrown Concert series. Photo by Stephen Winick.

In the Homegrown Plus series, we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. (Find the whole series here!)

We’re continuing the series with Ledward Kaapana, a master Hawaiian slack key guitar and ukulele player and singer in both baritone and falsetto ranges. He was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2011. He appeared at the Library of Congress on July 5, 2017.

In the first player, watch the concert.  Then scroll down for the oral history!

Ledward Kaapana demonstrates his guitar technique for AFC Head of Research and Programs John Fenn in the Jefferson Building media studio. Photo by Stephen Winick.

In the oral history, John Fenn spoke with Ledward Kaapana about his tradition and his life in Hawaiian music:

You can find both of these videos with more bibliographic information on the Library of Congress website, with the concert here at this link and the oral history at this link.

Read more about Ledward Kaapana at his website.

The American Folklife Center’s Homegrown Concert Series brings music, dance, and spoken arts from across the country, and some from further afield, to the Library of Congress.  For information on current concerts, visit the Folklife Concerts page at Concerts from the Library of Congress. For past concerts, including links to webcasts and other information, visit the Homegrown Concerts Online Archive.

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