Episode 5 - Dr. Jace Saplan
Episode 5 features Dr. Jace Kaholokula Saplan, conductor, educator, advocate, and researcher based in Hawai’i. We talk with Jace about their upbringing in music, gender identities and gender expressions, the Nā Wai Chamber Choir, and how to have conversations with students and ensembles to talk about the controversial past of ensembles while moving to be culturally responsible.
Jace Saplan - Website
The Choral Commons with Emilie Amrein & André de Quadros
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Black Women’s Liberatory Pedagogies: Resistance, Transformation, and Healing Within and Beyond the Academy by Olivia N. Perlow, Durene I. Wheeler, Sharon L. Bethea, BarBara M. Scott
Nā Wai Chamber Choir
Mana Maoli
Lili'uokalani Trust
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learning and promoting diverse musical voices in music, through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:15
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak with composers, creators, performers, historians and music educators about the topics important to them, and music's betterment.
Our next guest is another incredible and inspiring human being. Dr. Jace Kaholokula Saplan is the Director of Choral Activities and the Assistant Professor of Music at University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. He's known for his work in celebrating the intersection between Hawaiian music and choral performance. His research focuses on the performance practice of Queen Lili’uokalani’s choral compositions, multicultural perspectives in the choral rehearsal, intersections of choral pedagogy, gender, and sexuality in communities of color, and Native Hawaiian agency in music. We are so excited to welcome Jace today.
Carrie Blosser 1:16
Well, thank you so much for joining us. And we wanted to ask you, how did you get involved with music? And would you talk a little bit about your path to becoming a choral conductor?
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 1:28
Absolutely. So my grandmother was a performer at the only lūʻau on the Big Island of Hawai'i on the Hilo side, so I grew up in a very much more rural environment and I grew up in the Harbor Town of Hilo. And it wasn't necessarily known for tourism, it was more known as like a destination or a place in which a lot of first, second, or third generation, Asian Americans that came in from the plantation era, or long standing Hawaiian communities would live. And my grandmother, in the one hotel on the Big Island of Hawai'i, the Naniloa hotel, she had a show, a lūʻau show. And, you know, there is this Hawaiian saying where you know, don't speak, just do. And she would invite me as like, you know, as a three year old to just jump up on stage with her and I would pretend to play the ukulele. And then next week, she would teach me a chord as she's singing. And the next week, she would help me I would help her sing a song. And then she would help me learn an entire song on the spot, while this is in front of a live audience. And she would teach me how to harmonize. And then throughout like this very performative way, I also, you know, my relationship with my grandmother developed as one that was reverent in connection to reverent music making and also practicing my culture. And so with all of that involved, you know, that my Hawaiian identity, my cultural practice, my traditions, and my love of music, became to be this interwoven interconnected phenomenon that was placed in the center of my being. And as that was happening, I would attend church regularly every Sunday. And I would sing with my grandmother, she would teach me these songs, I would sing with all of these elders in our community and it just became to be such an incredible introduction to how we view elders in the native or indigenous society, and realizing my responsibility as a keeper of song, as a keeper of traditions throughout the lūʻau show through the Sunday, Pearl rehearsals in Hawaiian and that just stayed with me throughout my adolescent years into adulthood it blossomed into this is not only an avocation. This is a vocation, this is a hobby, this is a passion. And now this is
a kuleana or responsibility to pass forward to new generations of music majors, or music makers, whether they be Hawaiian or not.
Ashley Killam 4:37
That's so awesome. I love that such a unique story.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 4:40
Thank you.
Ashley Killam 4:42
So after reading, Carrie and I have done a bunch of reading, on your work and your research and all of the education that you've been passing on, and we were wondering, your thoughts on intersectionality, kind of within the realm of music, education, and how This can influence culturally informed lessons.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 5:04
That's such a good question. So, you know it, we do, I acknowledge all of the work that has been done within contemporary music education research, in building affirming practices for students of color, through LGBTQIA+ students. And you know, for students of varying socioeconomic statuses, students in rural environments, we do such a good job as a hub of music education action researchers, in building the capacity for educators to support the students towards success through music.
But one of the things that I've experienced is that, you know, for people like me, and for people like everyone within the global
honua, or our Earth, standing in earth, we carry and we have so many identities, and so many structures of identities. And there's this Hawaiian concept called moʻokūʻauhau, or a lineage. And when you see a student, or when a student walks into your classroom, they are not just a students, they are kūpuna, or they are in a net of their ancestors. And so then this framework encourages educators to see students as their parents or their guardians, they're the generations that came before, the generations that came before. And so consequently, then, they are containers for previous histories, for trials and tribulations, and trauma. And so as they come into these spaces, they're not just housing their Hawaiian identity, their Japanese identity, or their African American or Black identity They're also carrying their identities, as a cis male, a cis female, a trans student, a queer student. They're also carrying their identities that were passed down from their grandparents or their parents in terms of being displaced, or undergoing a incredibly horrific colonial history that they've inherited on the land that they walk on. And so when we view our students through that lens, we see that these approaches have to be intersectional. They have to be terraced and scaffolded in ways that honor the entire complexity of who they are. So when they walk into these classrooms, and I am responsible for facilitating music in their lives, I then have to look at the music in which I program or the music in which we study as part of a moʻokūʻauhau, or as part of the lineage as well. We do such a great job in music education, in creating affirming practice, in enlisting culture bearers, and making sure that we look at these musics in ways that affirm their identity.
But we need to go a step further and see these musics as living, breathing phenomena, as well, that both affirm and also oppress a student, right. And so if we come up with that, with that understanding in mind, then we realize that one's connection to a piece of music is not just the music in it, that in and of itself, within the confines of those 20 minutes of a rehearsal, or a lesson, but generations and generations of of experiences and individuals that have led to that moment as well. And so, what does that look like? Good question.
But what that looks like is, you know, allowing students to identity map to themselves, for them to reflect through that piece. This is my relationship to this piece as a Hawaiian. This is my relationship to the to this piece as a daughter of immigrants. This is my relationship to that piece and all of it, insert all of these things here and developing complex connections to these works, whether it be a 30-second folk song, or you know, a something else within the canon of music. Our students need to develop, especially now, complex relationships tied on connection and boundary with the musics that they connect to and consume.
Carrie Blosser 9:50
I think it's so important, letting our students be open to have internal conversations and then maybe if it's a, if it is a space that can be, you know, a conversation, a group conversation like that provides even more awareness and context and
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 10:05
Conversation, I think it's so important. And we tend to shy away from it right. Because of that, how we were trained in in our teacher training programs or within the, within our Western NASM accredited institutions, efficiency is important. Timing is important. Pacing is important. But, you know, there is a way in which we can have these conversations that honor the boundary of time in our class, right. And it may take some time, but to allow students to be critical, and to be inclusive and equitable, equity-minded with each other, and with their own identities through music, I think is an affirming practice that I'm really excited to see this work, take root, and propagate throughout the country.
Carrie Blosser 10:56
Absolutely. Kind of segues a little bit into the next question that we were going to ask. I was watching the Choral Commons via zoom, and it was so great to listen to you talk in general on the podcast, but I loved listening to like the zoom call. And the members of the Nā Wai Chamber Choir were there. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about that group that you're the Artistic Director of, and a little bit about the the goals and the preserving Hawaiian heritage and history through that vocal group.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 11:29
Sure, thank you for watching and shout out to Emilie Armrein and her work with the Choral Commons and for creating spaces for marginalized choral practitioners. So Love, love that and I love that I have the opportunity to speak about Nā Wai Chamber Choir. We are an ensemble dedicated to the preservation, propagation, and innovation of Hawaiian Choral music. And while that responsibility is normally regulated, if we have any sort of social justice or inclusion work in the choral community, a lot of it is tied to mixed voice ensembles, soprano alto, tenor and bass. But not us, not us. We are a treble voice ensemble. So all of our singers identify as sopranos and altos, and our current roster of membership, identify as assigned female at birth, right. So when in their work in propagating and preserving their culture and their identity, they're connecting it to their identity as wahine ikaika, or strong women. And so this process or practice of unpacking Hawaiian, female composers like the great Queen Lili’uokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii, Queen Emma, Queen Kaʻahumanu, and all of these name chants that affirm a, a woman's identity in a place where, you know, cis women have undergone through so much throughout history, and not necessarily, but through a culturally relevant lens has spoken to the strength of when we program music that our students can connect to, when we facilitate these themes of repertoire that helps students unlock and affirm who they are, they develop relationships with music, that is not just affirming, but life sustaining. And that gives them an atlas for how to walk on this earth as a BIPOC, or queer identity, more rooted with more strength and with, with protection, right. And that's something that I think is really important that the work that we do with Nā Wai Chamber Choir, we tour too much to more rural Hawaiian communities that may not have access to music education initiatives here in Hawai'i. Because as we all know, as we might know, Hawai'i is a series of islands separated by water and so all of these islands, especially our rural islands, really need access to music education and music education initiative that's culturally responsive. So we help fill in the gaps. We tour to these islands not necessarily during these past nine months because of COVID. But we make it a point to make sure that everyone has access to Hawaiian music and Hawaiian choral music. We tour to diasporic Hawaiian communities. When we performed with the American Choral Directors Association, regional conference in Salt Lake City, we made it a point to also connect with our Hawaiian civic society in Salt Lake City. You know, it's doing that work at that level, especially for communities that take up 1% of America's population, it requires travel, it requires a commitment to connection, and it requires a building of resilience to teach people how to walk this earth, with their ancestors, as with the reality that for most of their life, in spaces in western music making, or in performance, they will be the only one of that identity in the room. So how do we build that capacity of resilience, and those are the things that we try to work on in Nā Wai chamber choir through choral music.
Ashley Killam 15:41
That's awesome. And listening to the recordings are incredible. All the performances are, are so good. And I just love it's a whole, I mean, it's a whole layer, I mean, learning about this, and, and the culture and everything you're trying to cultivate in your ensemble. And in all of the classes you teach, from, granted, I'm not in a choral person raised, but being able to think about how this can transfer to the spaces that I currently teach and the spaces that I'm going to teach in the future. And this goes, I mean, this goes beyond just choir, in all of music on how we can relate this to the spaces that we want to carry, in all cultures that we teach, and how we can continue to build that and get our students thinking about that too. Because I feel, as educators, if we can pass that on, they're going to be so much more open and willing to question and think and just think about how they want to continue expanding their their spaces and their world.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 16:46
Absolutely. Yeah, I applaud that statement. So much. We have to, you know, affirm that, you know, how we practice music, and like the ensemble communities in which we practice music is important. But what is even, what is needed now more than ever, is to also lift those boundaries, right? It's so much more than just the wind ensemble, it's so much more than just a choral ensemble, if we start looking into terms of how this is all connected, and what the overarching question is and building more resilient, inclusive, equitable human beings, then then that's where the work begins.
Ashley Killam 17:25
And then a lot of these ensembles that we're thinking of have controversial pasts and how they came up with with Western music and this white lens in all of our spaces. And so what advice do you have to other music educators on how we can balance having the conversations about the problematic pasts? And in your case, the problematic pasts of choir and choral music, while still moving forward to be culturally responsible?
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 17:57
Yeah, that's a really great question. I think the first thing is to encounter and to be realistic and to have that conversation with your students about this problematic past and how spaces of ensembles have propagated musical narratives or cultural catalysts to culturing many bodies of color and many queer bodies, away from their own specific origin stories of affirmation, right? I always make it a point in my choral rehearsals, and in my music education classes for teachers to prepare a lesson that introduces this history. You know, I think for so much of it, what students of color and marginalized students, queer students, students that are othered away from the white experience they need to see, and I'm speaking specifically to my well, my well, white meaning colleagues, they need to see white allyship on display. And they need to see a model of white safety so that they can truly expand in that classroom and a lot of it will take an ally calling it out and inserting new culturally responsive boundaries in the classroom.
If I could just model an exemplar of what that could look like. I, I'm sure we'll talk a whole bunch about Hawaiian stuff in a second. But in instances in which I don't share that identity if I am a cultural, I'm trying to become a cultural ally and I stand up the peripherals of that specific phenomenon. We have, we're working with a Brazilian culture bearer/composer Dr. Daniel Alfonso from Cal State Stanislaus, who is an incredible human being, right. But in order to not tax that culture bearer in order for me to model for my students, what that looks like an allyship, I make sure that I call as much primary and secondary resources, and to embed it into the curriculum, before I engage with with the culture bearer, right. I'm making sure and I'm saying, Hey, you know, what, students, I don't identify this way. But it's important for us to get
mākaukau, or to get ready before they come as a sign of intercultural respect. So let's discuss this reading. Let's sit with this information, knowing that we have boundaries to our knowledge, right. And then we engage, and we engage, hopefully, with the place of knowing, but we're not taxing that culture, that is living and breathing in that space. Right? The same thing that goes I mean, like, you know, for so many of us, we have to do that work, it has to be integrated into our score study. If we give the same referent methodologies of scores study to Bach and Beethoven and Brahms, you know, I can guarantee our structures of identity and how they interleave are far less than what we consider as marginalized. Today, we have more things to share with living communities that aren't seen, then, you know, a Eurocentric curriculum that is important, but now is in the very distant past.
Carrie Blosser 21:43
So through your research, and with gender and gender expression, something that I wasn't familiar with was about gender expressions that are passed down through family, or cultural traditions. Would you talk a little bit about your research with that, and how, as educators and as musicians in general, we can think about that? Maybe through like, a different lens?
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 22:08
Sure. Yeah. So I identify as Māhū. Māhū is a gender expression that is passed down from your lineage or from a previous generation. In this case, my grandmother, the musician in our family. And when someone is given the responsibility of being Māhū, that you are named right, by a grandmother, a mother. You have the responsibility of embracing what we call a Ku, or indigenous ways of expressing masculinity, and Hina, indigenous ways of expressing femininity, right. So Ku is the god of war, Hina is the God, the Goddess of the moon. And together, when they combin, with their powers combined, they make, no I'm joking, but with what at the intersection there are Māhū individuals. And that's in credit, like that tends to exist outside of the realm and how we think and ideate gender expression and gender within Western norms, right, because, you know, the the arc of history is, and the point of advocacy is based on Excuse me, I was born into this identity, rights, and I should be given in terms of my gender expression, I should feel free to express myself, however, I would choose to express myself, not the case for indigenous spaces, right. But just as reverent, I was given this opportunity by my ancestors, to walk this earth with this identity. Because for those of us who identify as Māhū, we were assigned to be the caretakers, to shepherd in the next generation, and to carry all of our ancestral songs, our ancestral chants, and pass them down to the next generation and keep them alive. So if you were to think about all of those things in a Western context, right, caring for the youth, shepherding in the next generation, and being responsible for music. Hello, I am, I'm a choral conductor. So my, my responsibility in my role as a professional choral musician and choral educator, is directly connected to my Māhū identity, right? And as a way to celebrate my kūpuna, my elders.
So what does this mean, right? What is this all of this mean? And to me, noting that I have Māhū students whose reality is very different than gay males; whose reality is very different than, you know, trans students, you know, those identities are different because they have a different cultural lineage. And this ties into intersectionality. Right? We cannot tokenize or stereotype gender in our pedagogy or in our repertoire choices, right? They have to, especially in today's society, as Generation Z is becoming so adept in being advocates for gender expression and gender expansive thinking, we have to do the work too. And we also have to realize that gender is not separated from their identity as a musician. It is integrally connected, right? But it is also not one size fits all.
Right. And so, you know, when I make it, make it a point to ask questions, on, okay, so we're going to pick this piece, say it's with the treble choir, we're going to pick this piece, right? And this piece has a lot of pastoral symbolism, right, flowers, right? Right, bees or whatever, right? That euro-centrically is normally connected towards femininity, right? But then I always ask, okay, what does this symbolism mean, for your perspective, in terms of your gender, or gender expression? How can we flip the narrative being an habit be affirming that it's not a flower because you're dainty, right? To some students, it is a flower because it helps propagate future generations, and ensures that there is life, right. And that is what I choose to connect to with the symbolism. It is a flower, I'm sticking with this flower thing, because I don't I love flowers right now. And it is a flower. Because, you know, as a trans student, a flower can go through many stages, and I'm allowed to be whatever I choose to be, because this is on my terms, that actually happened. That was real life. So when we give the decision to not be prescriptive, and to pass down these horrific and limiting perspectives around gender and connection to music, making instead of last picket for their own terms, with it's still the same repertoire, but taught in a different way, and taught in ways that were affirming and affirm their gender and gender expression.
Carrie Blosser 27:36
Thank you so much for joining us, Jase. This has been incredibly informative.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 27:40
Thank you to Carrie and to Ashley for this incredibly courageous, bold, and like, fantastic work that is so needed. And I appreciate the two of you and the allyship that you demonstrate and the voice of advocacy that you bring to our community. Mahalo Nui Loa. Thank you so much.
Ashley Killam 28:03
Awesome. And then our final question that we are asking everyone, what's on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand?
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 28:13
Very good. So we are, yesterday, I had the opportunity to, after nine months, rehearse with a live socially distant ensemble with masks on and I have to say that experience. After months of research and planning on what is best and safe practices, that was a very emotional moment for me, just to hear sound and work with sound and to see humans from the Brady Bunch Zoom screen to in person was, I mean, I'm still recovering, recovering from it emotionally. But the repertoire that we are doing, that is on my stand with the University of Hawai'i Chamber Singers is coming from Joel Thompson's The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed and we are working on a movement called Amadou Diallo. And this multi-movement work done by a black composer uses the eurocentric choral structure of the seven last words, but instead uses the last words by black men gunned down by police violence. And so I'm excited to have these conversations with my students. And I'm excited to make music.
The text to that piece from Amadou Diallo is "Mom, I'm going to college." So we're going to dive deep into that we'll also be doing a work called Aloha Ia O Waianae. It is a song that honors a place here in Oahu with a lot of history and the hopes in studying that song and performing that song is we'll be singing it outdoors with a traditional Hawaiian lo'i, a taro patch. And this taro patch is kind of an outdoor classroom to help reconnect Native Hawaiians back to the land and back to traditions. And we're gonna pair that with choral performance. So, you know, it was a great way to kind of reinvision what describe music look like in 2021? And what how can it be a catalyst for change? Those are the two things on my stand.
Carrie Blosser 30:36
Thank you so much for sharing and for joining us.
Jace Kaholokula Saplan 30:39
Of course. Thank you, this was a blast!
Carrie Blosser 30:49
Links to more information about Dr. Jace Saplan are listed on our website and in the podcast description.
Ashley Killam 31:06
Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 31:10
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 31:26
And a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers’ websites are also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 31:44
Until next time, what's on your stand?